Acquiescence
by unbrilliance
Summary: When a spell of Hermione's malfunctions, Harry finds himself the equivalent of a house elf to none other than Draco Malfoy. Add in some embarrassing side effects and we have a thoroughly miserable Harry Potter and a positively gleeful Draco Malfoy. Slash!
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Acquiescence

**Disclaimer: **We all know that that the almighty J. K. Rowling is the owner of these characters.

**Pairing: **Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter

**Rating: **Mature as ever…

**Warnings: **Mainly for slash, naturally, but there's also smidgens of non-con and a dash of angst.

**Summary:** When a spell of Hermione's malfunctions, Harry finds himself the equivalent of a house elf to none other than Draco Malfoy. Add in some embarrassing side effects and we have a thoroughly miserable Harry Potter. Slash!

**A/N~ Yes, this is like a bond fic, but I'm trying to be as original as possible with the little used 'Harry the House Elf' idea, which I've found to be both scarce and never slash-related. This will be…really, I don't even know how long at this point, but it's safe to assume Acquiescence is my new epic. I hope you like it!**

~o0o~

Bound

If there was one thing aside from Voldemort that could terrify Harry, it was an angry and determined Hermione Granger.

"Out of the way, Harry." She hissed, brown eyes narrowed dangerously, whisper rivaling that of Snape's silken threats as Harry defiantly stood in the middle of the corridor that lead to the kitchens, blocking her way with open arms and a shaking wandhand with what he hoped to be a stern look on his face.

"No Hermione, this isn't right." He said firmly, wondering inwardly whether or not he'd really jinx Hermione to stop her latest campaign for S.P.E.W.

"Harry, I assure you, this is what really _is_ right!" she growled, nose scrunched in distaste, looking remarkably like Crookshanks, "I don't care what you or Ron say, they can't possibly want this."

Harry sighed, resisting the urge to rub his aching temple as Hermione would probably rush past him as soon as he let his guard down.

"Just—what exactly is it you're trying to do, again? What's all this about this 'freedom spell'?" he said patiently, perhaps if he got Hermione on another spiel, he could figure out a way to get her to forget about whatever it was she was trying to do to 'help' house elves.

"I've created a spell myself," she smiled proudly, her anger dissipating much to Harry's relief. "It took me weeks of research, but now it's ready to be tested. Even if the not successful, I've run through all the possibilities and the only adverse effect could be is a lingering drunk feeling on the elf. It wouldn't last long." She added hastily, eyes now imploring instead of livid.

"What is the spell supposed to do?" He knew any spell Hermione had invented would most likely work, but he still didn't trust its purpose if it involved house elves.

"It should nullify the house elves' need to serve a pure-blood family." She explained, "I'm still working on individual people and half-bloods and Muggle-borns, but I've found the most information on house elves serving pure-blood families, naturally."

She was scowling at the floor, lost in her thoughts so Harry approached warily, planning to continue to ask casual questions as he surreptitiously led her back up to Gryffindor Tower. He was starting to hope Filch or a teacher would show up just to get it over with, he was surprised they hadn't been caught so far without his Invisibility Cloak or the Marauder's Map especially considering that the kitchens were a popular destination for students that dared to wander the castle after curfew.

Then a creak from behind them trounced all hopes of going back to bed, Hermione spun around, positively beaming at a long-nosed house elf with floppy ears padding their way from the now open painting that was the entrance to the kitchens.

"Sir and Miss are be needing help?" It asked in a high, squeaky voice.

Hermione slipped around Harry, smiling in what was now an almost mad way at the little elf.

"Why yes, you can, what's your name?" she asked sweetly while Harry stood by, growling under his breath for her to stop, but she ignored him.

"Jammy, Miss."

"What a lovely name," Hermione simpered, "Will you do me a favor, Jammy and help me with this spell I need to test?"

Jammy nodded, looking nervous as it wrung its hands but pleased to be of assistance.

"Hermione, don't." Harry said warningly, holding up his wand.

She raised her eye brows, opening her mouth to probably start ranting again about elfish welfare before she simply turned back toward the elf, holding up her wand and flicking it in an intricate pattern, eyes closed.

"_Purus Sanguine Nolle—"_ she began the spell, a light blue glow pulse in the air, white threads undulating through the air like snakes, twisting and knotting. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand, trying to direct the wand away from the elf and starting when the snakes jumped to him, creeping around his fingers and worming up his arm.

"_Tenetur,_"

The threads were suddenly crawling through him, into him, entangling themselves under his skin, snaking around his bones and knotting around his very soul with a burning cold that sent white lightening flashing across his vision and excruciating pain through every inch of him, sharp and keening like individual needles sewing the spell into his existence with rapid fury. Thunder roared in his ears, but he was sure he was screaming, stumbling and falling, falling fast.

But then something caught him, steadied him as the pain reached its zenith, giving a final terrible spasm like the strumming of a cello, taut and low. His world was affixed by the arms that held him it seemed, though his vision swam, ears ringing and stomach rolling, and he knew he was either going to retch or faint.

Then his hazy gaze locked with a horrified one, eyes like a December sky pregnant with snow wide and confused.

He wasn't sure whether he was glad he fainted in the arms of Draco Malfoy rather than vomiting on the prat.

~o0o~

When Harry awoke, he instantly knew he was in the Hospital wing as he so often was, the sterile scent in the air and the lumpy mattress all too familiar. He couldn't recall any reason as to why he'd been hospitalized yet again, but that was the way it often was. He'd wake dazed and sore, peering bemusedly into anxious faces that sighed in relief when smiled at them. He hated to make people worry, but had long resigned himself to the fact that he would worry someone no matter what he did.

He was the Boy Who Lived after all.

When he opened his eyes to blink into the candlelit gloom blearily, it was Hermione who was at his bedside, worried and tearful, eyes red-rimmed and wide, hands twisting restlessly in her lap. Behind her was Dumbledore, a calculating look replacing the merry twinkle in his eye, which assured Harry that whatever had happened to him had been extremely dangerous or near fatal. After he'd fumbled for his glasses, he discovered the blob hovering near Dumbledore was McGonagall, looking as severe as ever.

"What did I do now?" he yawned, wriggling under the covers to stretch, feeling pleasantly rested rather than pained.

McGonagall snorted and Dumbledore smiled while Hermione promptly burst into the tears she'd evidentially been holding back.

"Harry, I'm sorry! I shou—should h-have l-l-listened!" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

"Hermione! What's wrong? It's alright, 'Mione, come on," he said soothingly, although completely baffled, sitting up to pat her on the back.

She immediately reared away from his outstretched hand, tear blurred eyes almost frightened. He dropped his hand, abruptly feeling as if he were diseased and unsafe from the look on Hermione's face. Perhaps that's why he was here?

"What's happened to me?" he asked, throat suddenly dry, glancing beseechingly from McGonagall to Dumbledore, who both looked hesitant to answer, "Am I alright?"

"As far as we know, Potter," McGonagall replied.

"As far as you know…?" Harry swallowed, paling. Had he been infected with some rare wizard disease? Had they discovered he had werewolf blood in him and could transform at any moment? He turned sharply to glance out the window, finding no moon, a grey dawn on the horizon. Had it already happened?

"What do you remember, Harry?" Dumbledore asked patiently, stepping forward.

Harry blinked, trying to sort through the fuzzy flashes of last night, which seemed only a few moments ago, yet recalling them mixed and muddled like remembering what he'd had for breakfast two months ago.

"Hermione…wanted to free a house elf." He mumbled, distinctly recalling her determined face. "But I wasn't going to let her, so I followed her to the kitchens to stop her…"

McGonagall and Dumbledore nodded patiently and Harry got the feeling that Hermione had told them the events already, merely wanting to see them from Harry's perspective.

"She did this spell she'd invented all her own," he smiled a little through his confusion. Hermione was a genius to do that. "And there was this light…like threads…"

He trailed away, wincing when he saw that white lightening flash across his vision as if burned there. There was a lot of burning, _Merlin _the frigid burning like an ice storm being crocheted into his very being…

"Pain, there was loads of pain," he said quietly, flinching when Hermione's squeaking sobs grew louder, her whole form shaking. "It wasn't Hermione's fault though; I was stupid enough to grab her wand before the spell was even finished. I didn't even think to use a Disarming Spell."

He flushed under McGonagall's disapproving glare, but only truly felt guilty when Dumbledore spoke,

"Both of you are at fault here. Miss Granger for attempting an experimental spell on a staff member of Hogwarts without expressly given permission or supervision, for that matter and Mr. Potter for doing something incredibly risky in grabbing a wand whilst its owner was casting a spell he had no knowledge of. Punishment will be given, but for now, we must find out what this spell has done to Mr. Potter."

Harry was red with shame, but he colored for a different reason when a familiar, superior voice sounded from nearby.

"Headmaster, _I_ won't be punished will I? I had absolutely nothing to do with this. I see no reason why I should still be here to deal with Potter and Granger's problems."

Harry looked around McGonagall to find Malfoy lounging on a bed, arms crossed over his dressing gown, scowling. Harry remembered it was Malfoy who had caught him as he writhed in pain under Hermione's spell and felt satisfied that he had had to stay the night in the Hospital wing as well, likely without his precious beauty sleep. Though Harry still flushed when he recalled that he'd _fainted_ in Draco Malfoy's arms, he managed to glare at him.

"Your punishment will only be for the crime of wandering after curfew, Mr. Malfoy. I assure you we can all leave when we figure out what Miss Granger's spell has done to Mr. Potter as well as those he has come in contact with."

Harry smiled as Malfoy's scowl deepened, looking as if he was going to argue with Dumbledore before he looked suddenly anxious.

"Just what was this spell supposed to do?" he asked, gaze flickering from the still incoherent Hermione to Dumbledore. "You said it was experimental."

"Granger was trying to create a spell to severe the bond a house elf feels toward the pure-blood family it serves, it seems." McGonagall answered and Malfoy snorted.

"You'd think with marks like yours, Granger you'd know house elves _like_ to serve wizards, _especially _pure-blood families. It's a bond that can't be undone even by clothes."

Harry bit back his retort, knowing Malfoy was right though the need to protect his friend's lost cause was a bit of a reflex by now, he knew Malfoy would laugh and cut down his argument with his quick wit and pure-blood beliefs and that would only send Hermione into a worse state than she already was in. Guilt-ridden, blubbering Hermione was less scary than livid, house elf protecting Hermione.

"We've examined Jammy, the elf the spell was intended for, and have found her completely normal. The spell hadn't any effect on her, though it seemed to have done something to Potter since he experienced pain and passed out." McGonagall went on as if Malfoy hadn't said anything. Harry didn't see any sneer or amusement on the Slytherin's face when she mentioned his passing out. He found this odd considering that in third year it'd been all he could talk about for weeks.

"Well what could it have done to me? I'm not an elf." Harry shoved off the covers and stood up, ignoring Hermione's gurgled protest, "I feel fine; I'm not in pain anymore."

The professors just looked at him thoughtfully and Hermione glared as if trying to will him back to bed, Malfoy was watching him coldly, eyes clearly blaming him for this mess.

"That spell wouldn't have made me the carrier of some horrid disease anyway, would it?" Harry said, only half hoping for a real answer.

"You were already a horrid disease before."

He was near enough to Malfoy's bed now to hear the sneering whisper.

"Oh, shove off Malfoy," he growled mildly, he didn't want to start things up with Malfoy along with the worries he already had.

"Shut up, Potter."

No one noticed when Harry went silent, each lost to their own thoughts and taking no notice when his lips seemed to seal together, but Harry did. It felt like he was being pulled by strings, the threads he knew were woven inside him weaving and tugging with a spark of that white lightening, and he knew what he was now, not a werewolf or the unfortunate carrier of some dreadful disease, no it was much worse.

He was now a puppet.

Malfoy was the puppeteer.

He would have swore if his lips weren't stitched together, he was appalled by the rush of pleasure that tingled along the strings, happy he was doing as Master had commanded, and doing a good job of it.

He had a sort of seizure when he realized he'd inwardly referred to _Malfoy _as _Master._

This was when the other three took notice that he was battling silently against an invisible force, they all stared wide eyed at him as he stood still, eyes just as wide, fixed on his new master's.

This wasn't going to be good.

"Harry?" Dumbledore said slowly, not drawing his gaze away from Malfoy's, who looked now faintly scared. "What do you feel?"

Harry continued staring at Malfoy, willing him to realize what he'd done, what he could do now. Why did it have to be Malfoy of all people? The one person who humiliate and torture Harry the most with this—this _curse_?

"Potter, what's wrong?" Malfoy demanded, edging backward on his bed, looking as if he indeed expected Harry to burst into the form of a wolf and eat him.

If only.

Harry was released from the spell with a cry of relief, only to be entangled into another order, Veritaserum running through his veins as he stammered, exasperated and mortified.

"I have to listen to you, you're my—my—my M-Master." He whispered.

He pinched himself on the hand, wanting to think he did so to wake himself from this nightmare, but knowing in reality and he had just punished himself for resisting his master's command.

He vaguely felt he may just throw up on Malfoy after all, disgust running through him at the—the _pride_ encircling the words master and Malfoy together with tight knots, bonds unbreakable.

Malfoy burst into laughter, high and hysterical, still eyeing Harry as if he was dangerous.

"Potter, you're mad! All this talk of house elves has gotten to you, obviously, that or the spell addled with your brain, though I say you've always been a bit barmy." He cackled.

Harry wished it was true, wished he was simply demented and confused, not the slave he'd been reduced to, the slave under Malfoy's vicious rule at that.

Malfoy's laughter died when Dumbledore stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking extremely grave, the familiar twinkle dead in his eyes as they seemed to X-ray Harry, reading the frustration and despair.

"I believe we now know what Miss Granger's spell has done to Harry." He announced, and Hermione gasped, comprehension in her eyes along with a disbelieving McGonagall.

"You can't possible mean to say—"

"Oh, Harry! I'm so sorry! I didn't—"

"Will someone tell me the apparent conclusion we've all reached?" snapped Malfoy coldly, his haughty voice ringing in Harry's ears. It was a command, an order, not specifically for him, so that meant he could—

"Hermione's spell has made me into what's practically your house elf. The spell had the opposite effect and it affected me." He answered promptly, wincing when he realized it would probably take a lot to resist any order issued from the Slytherin, directly given or not. He would try though; defy him in whatever way he could.

Only now could he appreciate how Kreacher must feel, forced by his own nature to obey what he believed to be awful, disgusting people. He instantly felt the pity Hermione apparently felt for the miserable wretch.

Malfoy was silent for many minutes, emotions passing too quickly across his face for Harry to identify before his features were a cold façade.

"What do you mean by that?" he inquired slowly, narrowing his grey eyes at Harry.

It was a twitching itch, the twanging of the threads within him, coaxing an answer from him, strangling his vocal cords, but he fought it, grinding his teeth as it intensified with each passing moment he refused to give _his master_ a reply. Soon his hands were jerking, a suffocating guilt pressing on him, the need to punish himself for daring to defy _his master_.

It was mad, irrational. Why should he have to give Malfoy an answer? Why should he have to obey him? He hated him, despised the slick git with all his pure-blood nonsense and Slytherin sliminess, on more than one occasion he wanted to pound his pale, pointy face into a wall until the prat stopped moving. He positively wanted to murder him sometimes! He saw red.

Then he realized he was not standing where he was before, that Hermione was shrieking again, that he was in pain again and he was indeed seeing red, it was flecked and smeared across the broken lenses of his glasses. He blinked slowly, gazing slowly from Dumbledore's drawn face to the wall he stood before, immobilized by a spell, gaping at the blood there.

He'd been bashing his own face into the wall.

After a moment of coming to terms with what he'd done, how he'd punished himself, Dumbledore seemed to deem him safe and released him from the spell to collapse shakily to his knees. He was quickly gathered into an embrace by a frantic Hermione, sobbing her apologies while McGonagall fetched Madam Pomfrey. He reassured her that everything was going to be okay, it wasn't all her fault, he was fine, all while staring at Malfoy, who was gaping at him with the same horrified look in his eyes Harry had blacked out to.

He felt again he may vomit on Malfoy from the pure horror to what he'd done to himself.

After Madam Pomfrey had fixed his face, fussing over him and tucking him into bed again with promises for an early breakfast, Dumbledore had directed Malfoy to sit beside him and Harry found he couldn't look at him.

"This is a spell we have very little knowledge of and no idea as to what the cure to it may be." Dumbledore told him, Harry distantly noting he hadn't yet referred to the sinister thing entwined in his being a _curse_. "So it may be an extended amount of time before we could ever hope to attempt to remove such an enchantment."

Malfoy made no protest this time, but Harry was inwardly wondering why an incredibly powerful wizard like Dumbledore couldn't remove a curse invented by a sixth year student.

Then again, Hermione was brilliant.

"So I believe several rules should be set so the both of you may be more comfortable while we search for the counter-enchantment." He smiled at them as if they'd always been the best of friends. Harry was sure his scowl matched Malfoy's.

"Mr. Malfoy, direct orders to Harry will result in docking of points from Slytherin house and a detention, depending on the severity of the command." Dumbledore told him, and Harry managed to smile at the crestfallen look on the Slytherin's face when he risked a glance.

"No one aside from yourselves may know of Harry's condition,"

Harry knew from the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes that he fully expected Harry to break that rule when it came to Ron, who was probably already raving about it since Hermione had fled to the dorms to prepare for the day.

"That includes the Malfoy family."

"What?" Malfoy did protest now, drawing himself up indignantly, "And why is that? From what I heard from Granger, Potter is bound to the Malfoy _family_ not just me."

"You are correct and that is precisely why, Draco," Dumbledore's voice was abruptly sharp, pinning Malfoy with an unfathomable look, "I assure you I've spoken with Professor Snape."

Malfoy glowered, scrutinizing the Headmaster's face with a suspicious stare. After a moment he slouched back with a mastered grace into his chair, crossing his legs with a satisfied air as if he settled the matter, rather than Dumbledore.

The old wizard's jolly look returned and he smiled, "Well, I'll leave you two to your breakfast. Don't dawdle too late, though I'm sure Minerva will make an exception for you."

He waved and strode out the door, humming idly to himself.

"Well this is spectacular." Harry said tonelessly.

"Isn't it though?" Malfoy drawled.

"You know, I thought you'd be absolutely ecstatic to have me as your slave, Malfoy. Aren't all Slytherins control-freaks?" Harry turned to glare at Malfoy, who was still sprawled back in his seat, somehow maintaining his elegance even as he nibbled absently on a pristine nail.

"What's the fun in anything without control or power? So yes Potter, as you so bluntly put it, we are. And believe me you, I would be dancing in joy if that was really the case, ordering you to do all sorts of things," he smirked wickedly, the wistful look in his eyes assuring Harry that one of those things would be both public and mortifying.

"But with that old codger's rules I can't do any of those glorious things if you're going to tattle every time I so much as ask you to pass the salt." He continued sullenly, meeting Harry's glare with what was frighteningly close to a pout.

"Its not as if I'm really going to do that, Malfoy." he rolled his eyes, wishing Pomfrey would hurry up so he could get far, far away from his bloody master.

"What do you mean by that Potter?" Malfoy questioned swiftly, leaning toward Harry with the same narrow eyed, calculating look he'd addressed Dumbledore with earlier.

Harry felt the tug of the curse, but answered without its prodding, "I mean I'm not some goody-goody that will run off to Dumbledore for everything." He raised his chin defiantly, knowing that's exactly what Malfoy thought.

"Really, could have fooled me." He sneered simply, echoing Harry's thoughts.

Harry glared, but ignored him in favor of fiddling with the frayed end of one of Dudley's old shirt's he'd slept in, suddenly feeling shabby beside Malfoy, whose green (of course) silken pajamas perfectly fit his lithe form, his dressing gown even had his initials sewn in the pocket with ornate silver thread.

"So if I ordered you to do something simple and trivial, you wouldn't go running to your beloved Dumbledore?" Malfoy asked, and Harry started, realizing he'd been staring at Malfoy.

The curse compelled the answer from him before he could think properly, "No, as long as no one was hurt and it wasn't incredibly ridiculous."

He frowned, he hadn't wanted to give Malfoy that information, he rather fancied holding the threats Dumbledore had said over the blonde's head, though in reality he'd avoid going to Dumbledore if he could. He didn't need the headmaster's help with dealing with Malfoy's childish jokes and jeering. He wasn't a coward that hid in Dumbledore's shadow as Malfoy liked to think.

A slow grin spread across Malfoy's pale face and Harry decided it was distinctly evil coupled with the glint in his grey eyes reminiscent of that of the Weasley twins.

"Call me 'Lord Malfoy'." he ordered.

Harry glared daggers, his nose throbbing as if to remind him of the consequences of resisting. He gave in, determinedly staring at the ceiling as he sighed dully,

"Lord Malfoy."

"Good little elf, aren't you?" Malfoy snickered.

Harry jolted at the pleasure singing through the strings at the praise, his rational mind knowing it was false, sarcastic, but the curse simply vibrated with joy, making him feel a little drunk and uncomfortably hot. He doggedly fought the urge to grin like a loon.

"Now say that you're a goat-faced git," Malfoy was positively gleeful.

"You're a goat-faced git." Harry smirked simply, chuckling when Malfoy glared, happy to know he still thought of the Slytherin as he always had.

Part of him, anyway.

"Think you're clever, do you?" he growled, standing.

"Occasionally," Harry replied, reclining further on the bed, expecting Malfoy to either throw a tantrum or leave.

Harry was satisfied when the Slytherin spun on his heel, storming toward the door before he stopped mid-step, turning around slowly to regard Harry with a look smile that sent ice in his veins.

"Oh, right, Potter, don't forget, I'd like you to refer to yourself, aloud and on paper, as 'the Boy Who Lived to Snog Horklumps'. Be a good little elf while your master is away."

Harry, the Boy Who apparently Lived to Snog Horklumps, cursed and ran a hand through his hair and dreading what promised to be an extraordinarily long day ahead of him.

~o0o~

**A/N~ I demand reviews from my loyal hous—readers… I meant readers. Lol. Please review.**


	2. Tangled

Tangled

It had been more than an extraordinarily long day; indeed, it had been a long, frustrating, trying, embarrassing, simply horrible day that left Harry ready to murder Malfoy.

The order Malfoy had given him turned into a harmless joke after McGonagall found out and promptly gave the git two days of detention, though that didn't stop the entirety of Slytherin from calling him 'the Boy Who Lived to Snog Horklumps' or the odd looks Hagrid and Professor Sprout were giving him.

Nor did it stop Ron from ranting, raving, and generally brooding about the curse all day. Hermione was constantly in a state of tears, a profuse apology endlessly spilling from her lips but Ron, the tactless idiot, kept bringing it up and blaming Hermione. It was probably one of their worst rows yet at the end of the day when Hermione snapped and started to scream at him in the common room, frightening and confusing everyone before she stormed up to the girls' dormitory, still shrieking incoherently about Slytherins and house elves.

When he and Ron had fled the awkward questions and befuddled looks, Ron at last had the good grace to look guilty, shaking his head to himself and glowering at his feet as they changed for bed.

"Harry?" he asked after a while, "You don't think…I was too hard on her?"

The look on Harry's face was answer enough and Ron grimaced, coloring and muttering something about house elves. Harry just rolled over in bed and tried to ignore him, giving a noncommittal grunt when Ron decided it was mostly Malfoy's fault.

But Harry knew it was his own fault, he had been the one stupid enough to grab at Hermione's wand while she was casting that spell and Malfoy was as much a victim of it as he was.

Only the git was enjoying it far more than he should.

He sauntered down the corridors, not like the Prince of Slytherin, but rather like the King of Hogwarts entirely, smirking constantly and sending imperious looks toward all Gryffindors as if to proclaim silently that he had their leader under his control. The other Slytherins had no idea why he was acting this way, but gloried in it anyway, hexing first years more than usual and generally being haughty and nasty to anyone in their warpath.

Harry had had worse days, but the curse made this one particularly terrible; at any mention of his name, any flash of blond, or blink of grey, those strings within him were plucked, singing a maudlin tune of longing. It was absolutely revolting how much he wanted to be by Draco Malfoy's side, the thrill he got when he imagined himself groveling at his feet, dutifully carrying out his every beck and call, how he desired to be praised and ordered. He wasn't sure how long he could resist not running up to his master and asking if he needed anything.

_His master,_ Merlin he didn't know when he was going to get used to those words echoing in his head along with Malfoy's cruel laughter.

He held tight to the belief that if he was clever enough, he could avoid obeying him, finding loopholes and 'accidentally' taking his words for a different meaning without having to punish himself. He was still terrified of that urge, the way it twanged at random moments when he unknowingly disobeyed, guilt and bloodied images of himself soaking his mind.

It wasn't the need to punish himself that was the most horrifying part, nor was it the delight in the idea at licking Malfoy's boots, it was the artificial pleasure singing through his veins at Malfoy's scorning praise that made him feel truly cursed. It felt pleasant, too pleasant, sexual even, and he thought house elves shouldn't get off _that_ much when rewarded.

He knew the next day would prove to be just as difficult, especially coupled with the thought of the embarrassing conversation he was likely to have with Dobby.

He did not look forward to the next day at all.

~o0o~

Draco couldn't wait until tomorrow.

It was still a surreal feeling, a glorious surge of pure _power_ to think that Harry Potter, the Golden Gryffindor, the Boy Who Lived, the hope of the Wizarding world was nothing more than _Draco's house elf!_

Oh, he'd been terrified at first, that crazed look it Potter's eyes still haunted him, but he quickly quashed that terror with the beautiful words Potter had then spoke, absolute music to his ears.

_"I have to listen to you, you're my Master."_

It was like an early Christmas.

Dumbledore's rules and threats aside, he knew Potter was naturally going to be the noble martyr he always was and bear the curse with his chin held high, glaring Draco down and stubbornly resisting his every command to the point of near death.

That would surely be entertaining.

Watching Potter smash his head into the wall hadn't been entertaining however, it was frightening in fact and left him with a churning in the pit of his stomach, the same feeling he'd felt when the Chosen One was screaming and flailing about. It'd been equally as scary when Draco tried to steady him and he went limp, staring into his eyes with a sort of dazed intensity that made Draco feel transparent.

He shook his head, directing his thoughts back to Potter-related ones that involved what fun the next day promised not how he hated to see the bloody Gryffindor hurt.

He almost considered consulting Blaise and Pansy about what he should command his new little minion to do next, but he knew that even if Potter had already moaned about the curse to the Mudblood and Weasel, their benevolent headmaster would not forgive him so easily if he were to tell two thoroughly untrustworthy and Gryffindor-despising Slytherins. Admittedly, Draco wouldn't trust his two friends with so much as a Galleon, which was mildly pathetic compared to Potter's never ending trust in anyone who so much as smiled at him, but it was still unfair.

Potter was always that old codger's favorite, running about the school without a rule to tie down his misadventures, while those who were doing the _real_ work against the Dark Lord, those in a constant state of peril, in Hogwarts or not, were bound and tangled in expectations and secrets.

Not to mention the mark on their arms.

Draco shuddered, clutching at his left arms and fingering the Dark Mark beneath his sleeve, recalling the burn, the pain, the fucking unbelievable _pain _that seemed to linger even now, dull and diseased, growing like a cancer every time he thought about the dark days of summer.

The glory in the name 'Death Eater' died along with the first Muggle on the drawing room floor.

Father and Mother had been worried when the Dark Lord gained physical form again, but he thought nothing of it, foolishly entertaining ideas of himself becoming a loyal follower to his cause, a faithful Death Eater, feared by all. The fantasy was dispelled with a sneer and a Cruciatis Curse, and after that, he himself began to worry. The worry didn't stop him from doing awful things that later woke him in the night feeling indescribably despicable and filthy, as if the blood was still staining his hands, dark and thick like his own horror and shame.

When the Dark Lord gave him his very first, super special mission he knew how his illustrious career as a Death Eater was going to end. It would end with his death, either by his own hand or someone else's.

On the first day back to school, despite his bravado and vows to carry out the assassination of the most powerful wizard alone, he'd found himself already broken that very evening, sobbing forcefully in Severus Snape's shocked and stiff arms as he begged him to end it, end Dumbledore, end _Draco._ There had been a long silence after that, but eventually his godfather spoke, softly and carefully in a tone Draco had never heard him use before, and told him there was another choice aside from his own or someone else's death.

So he was swept away to Dumbledore's office and after a dose of Veritaserum and many assurances and irritatingly pitying looks, he found himself with a future, working as a spy just like Severus for the Light.

That didn't stop him from hating the man who saved him.

Or Potter for that matter.

He miraculously managed to drift to sleep smiling, clinging to the memory of Potter's face when he first announced he lived to snog Horklumps before a group of confused Ravenclaws.

~o0o~

He still distinctly hated the Mudblood, also, and no amount of awe in her ability to know bloody _everything _sway him from that, though admittedly, he was feeling particularly fond of her today considering Potter's becoming his slave was her brilliant mind's doing. So he smiled charmingly at her when she came bustling up to him in the library the next day after lunch, unfortunately sans Draco's new house elf.

"Well, good day Granger. To what do I owe the pleasure of an audience with the clever girl who granted me the absolute best gift in the form of her best friend's slavery?" he said sweetly, smirking when she glared, eyes still red rimmed from crying, and glanced about to see if anyone had heard.

"Malfoy, I need to talk to you about Harry." She said evenly, evidently finding their conversation secure in the little used alcove Draco claimed as his own territory, muffled by unpopular, thick books and tall shelves.

"Whatever about?" he drawled, lounging back in the cushion he'd conjured, flipping idly through his book, "He's not complaining already is he? I haven't even ordered him to _actually_ snog the Horklumps. Yet."

She chose to ignore that, avoiding his imperious gaze as she sat in a chair nearby, dropping her load of battered tomes with a loud slam and a cloud of dust. Draco watched with interest as she took her time sorting through the thick books, obviously whatever it was she wanted to talk about was extremely important, otherwise she wouldn't brave his presence.

She dragged the chair back over to him, a notebook and quill in hand, sitting herself down and looking at him expectantly.

"I don't have the time to be interviewed, dear." He sneered, returning his gaze to his book, "Tell your darling Potter that I'm not making any deals, signing any contracts, or whatever else your oversized brain has concocted."

"I need to know how the spell is affecting you, if it is at all." she said patiently, opening her notebook, "I'm not entirely sure what it's actually done, obviously I need that information if I'm ever to make a counter-curse."

"Why would you assume I'd help you take away all my fun, Granger?"

"The sooner this is done, the sooner I leave you alone, Malfoy."

He sighed explosively, shutting his book and sitting up to face her steady chocolate gaze.

"Why would the curse on Potter affect me at all? It was put on him, and he was bound to the Malfoy name. I've never felt any pain when the house elves iron their fingers and such."

He grinned when her stare sharpened into a glare and was mildly impressed when she held back whatever rubbish she was going to say about elfish welfare. She simply took a calming breath and asked clinically,

"When you order Harry to do something, you feel nothing?"

"Apart for absolute joy, yes."

"When he punishes himself, you feel nothing?"

"No," he lied, ignoring the lurch of his stomach when he remembered the Potter smashing his face into the wall, the crack of his nose breaking, the blood gushing…

"When the curse was first cast and Harry fell on you, you felt nothing?"

"Nothing indeed."

Granger went quiet, nibbling her quill thoughtfully and glowering at her notes. Draco watched, wondering if she'd notice if he spelled her forehead to read 'elf shagger' or something of the like. Yes, Draco missed having his own hoard of house elves to do his bidding, but he never liked them, the memory of a particularly creepy one from his childhood that had a nasty habit of watching him sleep left him perpetually wary of the creatures.

"We'll have to test then," Granger mumbled, standing and jotting something down, "I'll be back, Malfoy."

With that she walked out of the library, still frowning at her notes and muttering. Draco faintly thought of leaving just to spite her, but decided the word 'test' was intriguing enough to make him wait.

He was rewarded awhile later when Granger returned with a harassed looking Harry Potter in tow, glaring at Draco with a hatred that simply made him grin. Whatever this was, Potter didn't like it, and whatever Potter didn't like Draco was sure to enjoy.

"Hello Potter, won't you greet your master properly?"

Draco chuckled when Potter physically resisted the order, chewing on his lip and fidgeting in the seat he'd taken beside Granger's.

"Harry," she said sharply, "Don't, not over something stupid."

He glared at her, and said without looking at Draco,

"Hullo Master."

"Good, Potter."

Potter crossed his arms and sat rigidly in his chair, blushing and still glowering in Granger's general direction. Draco wished he could take a photo of the moment, especially coupled with the fact that Potter's flushing face was one of the cutest things he'd ever seen.

He ignored that thought.

"Alright, Malfoy, tell Harry to do something. Simple. And reasonable." She added sternly when he beamed wickedly. He refrained from reminding Granger that Gryffindors and Slytherins had completely different ideas of 'reasonable' in favor of going through his long, long mental list of things he wanted Potter to do.

"Get it over with!" Potter growled; face red, when Draco had evidently taken too long smiling like a shark.

"If you're so eager…" he smirked as Potter's retort was silenced by a severe look from Granger, "Bow to me, Potter."

"What?" Potter exclaimed, bolting to his feet and glaring at Draco, the funny bend at his waist was telling him that Potter had heard exactly what he ordered.

"Bow down, Potter, bow to your master." Draco said darkly, staring into those defiant, verdant depths that were Potter's eyes with a dare held like a dagger, a death sentence between them.

After another tense moment, miraculously, those stubborn eyes lowered submissively, and Potter folded himself into an awkward, pained looking, low bow. Draco was struck dumb in awe for a moment, gaping at the back of Potter's head, his exposed neck were his messy hair curled slightly. Vulnerable is one way he thought he'd never see the great Harry Potter.

He leaned forward, sliding slim fingers to cup the Gryffindors chin, tilting his face up to meet the enevitable glare, then whispered in his ear,

"You're a very good house elf, Potter, seems to be your proper place. The Boy Who Lived will serve me well."

Potter shuddered and Draco laughed as he straightened, flushed and furious, throwing himself into his seat. With a single exchanged glance, they both knew the other would never forget that moment, one mortified and the other sinisterly gleeful.

"Well, Hermione?" he demanded, and Draco just then recalled the Mudblood's presence. She was staring at the place where Harry had bowed, brow furrowed and wand held absently at her side.

"Well, my spells couldn't detect any trace of magic there." She said, scowling as she wrote that down.

"What's that mean?" Potter asked, "Can't you sense the curse?"

"No," she sighed, frustrated, "What about you? What did you feel, Harry?"

~o0o~

Harry didn't want to share how he felt.

He felt angry at Hermione for dragging him here to test the boundaries of the stupid curse, stupid for allowing it to happen, sitting here like some sort of therapy group in a secluded corner of the library, murderous toward Malfoy for making him bloody _bow_ to him, and positively horrified at himself for the thrill he was getting from Malfoy's whispered approval, it was all heat and sweet song strumming through the curse.

He didn't even want to think about how much he _loved_ bowing down to _his master._

"What does it feel like when you resist an order?" Hermione asked instead and Harry almost smiled gratefully at her.

"It's…all constricting, like I'm tied up on the inside or something," he tried, "And I get—I get guilty and want to hurt myself."

He silently dared Malfoy to say something, but the prat wasn't looking at him thankfully, preoccupied with his pristine nails. Hermione tittered worriedly but wrote down several notes, seeming to brighten slightly.

"Right then, so Malfoy you feel nothing at all when you order Harry to do something?" she asked.

"I've told you no." he whined.

"And when he resists?"

"Frustration, though I suppose I should expect it. I'll just have to break him in properly before he's an obedient servant I can be proud of."

"You wish, Malfoy." Harry growled, "You know I will never be 'obedient' to a bastard like you."

"You're just like a wild Kneazle, Potter. All animals can be tamed," Malfoy said simply, slouching back with that elegant grace he always carried, "Though I can't say the same about that beast on your head you call hair."

Harry rolled his eyes and stood, fighting the urge to tug self-consciously at his hair. Malfoy combed a slender fingered hand through his own gossamer strands, the platinum hair untangled, hanging in those stormy eyes that were flashing with cruel amusement.

"Can I leave now, Hermione?" he hissed, quite sure he was going to punch his _master_ if he quipped another jibe.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, sure, Harry." She muttered distractedly, already immersed in her notes again.

Harry left her to suffer in Malfoy's intolerable company, retreating to the common room to fume in solitude for the rest of his free period, hating Malfoy every moment of it. He continued to hate him all through Charms and then Herbology, thankful he didn't have a class with the Slytherin that day. He just wanted to forget about the strings entangled in his bloody _soul_, the curse binding him to the Malfoy name, the feelings that he shouldn't have been feeling smoldering along those choking lines. Just the mere thought of the prat was torment.

And yet he was still more terrified of the conversation he was about to have.

He padded down the autumn chilled corridors, hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak with the Marauder's Map in hand, this time desperately hoping not to be caught as he stole down to the kitchens.

He didn't remove the Cloak until the pear was giggling fitfully, the portrait swinging open to reveal the mass of short elves only, no fellow midnight wanderer among them snacking. When he did take off the Cloak he was abruptly welcomed and ushered in graciously in a flurry of deep bows and squeaky voices offering various sweets and drinks.

It was staggering to think that this was what he was now, apart from the bat-like ears and high voice. Perhaps Malfoy would one day make him wear a tea cozy for his clothes.

His face darkened when the curse heated with pleasure at that thought.

"Harry Potter, sir!"

Dobby was bouncing toward him through the throng of house elves, bowing the deepest of all, his forehead fairly smashing to the floor as he simply beamed.

"You has come to see, Dobby sir? Dobby has heard Jammy tell of Harry Potter beings in the corridor!" he squeaked as he guided him to a seat by one of the fires, nodding to the house elves that asked if Harry wanted the treacle tart he's so fond of.

A dirtied heap that turned out to be Winky dozed fitfully by the hearth, Butterbeer clutched in hand and tomato-like nose running copiously.

"How has she been?" Harry asked Dobby as he accepted a goblet of pumpkin juice, nodding toward the elf that now tossed to one side in the course of a dream.

"Some days is better, Harry Potter sir, some is…" Dobby trailed away fretfully, shaking his head at Winky.

Harry imagined what he may feel like if he were to lose Malfoy as Winky lost her beloved Crouches. Elation, joy, and freedom were feelings he conjured rather than the depression poor Winky had slipped into.

"Dobby, something's happened," he said quietly, staring at the goblet rather than the wide, worried green eyes watching him, "You see, Hermione was making this spell—"

There was a collective disdainful murmur behind him at Hermione's name, he glared over his shoulder and watched the elves scurry away meekly before turning back to Dobby, who had tears in his eyes.

"I'm fine! I'm alright, Dobby!" he assured him quickly, "But, the spell it sort of went wrong and now I'm—"

He stared at Dobby, who was gazing at him anxiously, probably the only creature that could understand his pain, the torment of serving a Malfoy.

But would he understand his pleasure?

"Dobby, I'm sort of like Draco Malfoy's house elf now."

Dobby did start crying then and Harry didn't take that as an encouraging sign. He frowned and patted Dobby on the back, trying to find away to assure him it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

If he were, he knew he'd be lying.

The elf blubbered half formed sentences, sobbing and wailing, until he mopped his enormous eyes and whispered,

"Draco Malfoy's house elf?"

Harry sighed, "Something of the sort. I feel the need to obey him and if I don't, well, you know."

Dobby nodded knowingly, sweeping a look over Harry as if checking for self inflicted injuries. Harry refrained from telling him about the broken nose, the elf had cried enough already.

"How has you been serving your Master Malfoy?" Dobby asked, looking fearful, "I hope Master tis nicer to Harry Potter than Master were to Dobby."

Harry scowled, wondering just what the ever abusive Draco Malfoy could have done to poor Dobby in his spoiled childhood and what he might've done to Harry if given free reign over him. He heard oven doors slamming and riotous giggling over the keening screams, shuddering to himself he dispelled the image, knowing it would come to him later in sleep and haunt him till morning.

"Dumbledore has given him rules so he can't order me around much anyway," Harry said, suddenly very grateful for Dumbledore indeed, "I don't think Malfoy's ever been nice to anyone."

Dobby agreed fervently, mumbling in wonderment about the great Master Dumbledore, and Harry sighed again, suddenly wishing he had something stronger in his hand than pumpkin juice.

"Dobby, I know you never like the Malfoys, but what's it like to serve someone you do, like Dumbledore?" he asked, feigning absent interest while really listening keenly, practically on the edge of his seat.

"Tis an honor, Harry Potter, to serve a great wizard, tis greater an honor to serve a kind one." Dobby smiled proudly, looking at the ceiling in adoration, "Dobby tis happy serving Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts!" someone snorted, a hiccup telling Harry that it was likely Winky, awoken from her sleep, "Twas more honor to serve Master Crouch."

She was sat up, sulking as she spun her bottle on the floor, watching it with teary, slightly crossed, eyes. "So Harry Potter serving Master Malfoy? What has sir to complain? Tis an honor…tis an honor. Winky remembers Lord Lucius Malfoy, she thinks him a good Master—"

"How did it feel to serve Mr. Crouch, Winky?" Harry asked swiftly before Dobby could start scolding her, from the look on his face he wanted to tell Winky what sort of master Lucius Malfoy was very much. Winky was a real, dedicated house elf unlike Dobby she had loved slaving for an unappreciative master as long as she was in her rightful place as nothing more than the keeper of a madman.

"Are wonderful, wonderful, good," she sniffed, straightening her stained blouse before her gaze seemed to focus, squinting at Harry, "Does Harry Potter sir like serving his master?"

Harry flushed, averting his eyes to the ground and taking a swig of pumpkin juice. Why did she have to ask that, the question he'd come here to ask them?

Yet he could deny the need to serve Malfoy, painful and constricting, but also the thrill of it, sweet and embarrassingly heated, sparks of lightening through his veins and thunder stuttering in his chest…

"Harry Potter sir likes to, doesn't he?" Dobby said quietly and he nodded, shame mixing with pride in a potent concoction that left him confused and mildly queasy.

"Tis a house elf's nature, Harry Potter sir,"

Harry nodded gruffly at Dobby, sincerely hoping it was just that and not Harry's own desires flaring because of the curse.

He wanted to sever the tie binding him to Draco Malfoy before he could find out.

~o0o~

* * *

**A/N~ Sneaking in another warning here for self harm… My goodness house elves lead dangerous lives don't they?**

**I promised some people (you know who you are) a holiday special, but I'm sorry to say that won't be likely now that I'm trying to focus on Acquiescence and my own goings on this Christmas. I'm really sorry, but perhaps I'll do something for New Years if I can find the time.**

**Happy holidays everyone! Thanks for reading, please review!**


	3. Knotting

Knotting

Harry needed a sock.

Not just any sock, however, he needed _Malfoy's _sock.

Hermione, though still weepy with guilt, had taken on a fierce, almost frightening determination in finding the counter-enchantment to the curse. She had gathered every book in the library in relation to house elves and bonding spells, which happened to be a staggering amount, stacked in wobbling piles in a corner of the common room that she had staked out as her territory. Her little leather-bound notebook had turned into her constant companion, mumbling at it and frowning as if it had answered her incorrectly. She kept it clutched protectively to her chest, snapping, at Ron especially, whenever anyone tried to read it.

Harry had thought it was odd, but decided that it would probably be that little book and Hermione's almost morbid volition, that would free him from Malfoy's reign.

However he began to hate when it apparently gave Hermione her latest plan to try and break the bond tying him to Malfoy.

"Well, it's worth a try, Harry. It's the traditional way to banish a family's house elf." she told him, scowling at her book before nodding and giving Harry a sharp look, obviously ready quash any resistance.

Harry did glare for several seconds, but in the end mustered up all the patience and bravery he needed to tromp up to the Slytherin table at lunch where only Crabbe and Goyle lingered with Malfoy, sitting beside him dutifully like trained dogs while their master finished his Charms homework.

Harry hated to think that, though unwillingly, he was likely more loyal to Malfoy now than the pair of hulking bodyguards. Malfoy was truly, terribly, his Master.

It didn't help that the curse was thrumming with heat now as he approached Malfoy, eyes insolently locked with those cold grey ones that looked upon him and saw a slave, nothing but a chained and tamed beast. He wanted to prove that he was more than that but when the threads, the imprisoning chains tangled within him were pricking at his spine, intent on making him bow, he didn't see how he could aside from doggedly glaring and reminding himself of Malfoy's general foulness.

Malfoy's cronies flexed intimidating when Harry stepped up to them and Malfoy simply smirked, raising a pale brow. Harry knew he probably had half a mind to command him to bow and grovel without delay in the Great Hall, but only restrained himself for Dumbledore was seated at the Head Table, likely watching with a twinkle in his eye.

"Yes, Potter?" Malfoy asked, "Pray tell, whatever could the Golden Boy require of slimy old me?"

The curse constricted around his vocal cords, trying to squeeze the answer out of him, but he just scowled, biting his lower lip, part of him trying to draw blood as punishment, part of him trying to stay silent.

Malfoy grinned wickedly and watched, drawing out Harry's torment with relish. And all he could do was glare, like the caged lion he'd been reduced to, Malfoy the smirking sadistic ringmaster watching him starve, performing circus tricks while trying to maintain what pride had left. The prat at last grew bored and dismissed his twin walls of bulky muscle with the wave of a hand. Harry marveled at the fact that Malfoy could end his life now with the wave of a hand and a few simple words just as he commanded the entirety of Slytherin.

"Speak, Potter," Malfoy demanded and Harry finally released his abused lip.

"Hermione wants you to come to the courtyard with an article of clothing." He reported, wincing when he bit back the word _sir_ tacked on the end of the sentence. He was glad the curse had at least spared him from speaking like a true house elf, his grammar garbled and groveling.

Malfoy looked him over with dry interest and nodded, huffing as if it was some great bother to meet them in the courtyard with a sock.

"I suppose it makes sense, though I doubt her scheme will work," he rolled his eyes, "You'd think The Know It All would plan ahead and create a counter-curse before testing the bloody thing. I thought she was smarter than that."

He smirked as he gathered his things, watching Harry as one would watch a wild animal, smugly pacing behind iron bars, wearing his freedom like a badge of honor. "Though I was spot on with you, sacrificing your noble self to save a lowly house elf, bravery comes hand in hand with stupidity it seems."

Harry stormed away, Malfoy's words ringing in his ears like rattled prison bars. He had been incredibly _stupid_ to end up in this mess, but it was going to take all his courage to get through it without murdering Malfoy or himself for that matter.

Or giving in to the curse, bowing and basking under the cruel rule of Draco Malfoy; which was going to take a lot of Gryffindor determination to avoid, indeed.

So it was half an hour later Harry and Hermione stood in the courtyard, waiting for a Malfoy that should have been there fifteen minutes earlier, shivering in the blustery wind. Harry was cursing under his breath, debating what he'd have to do to himself if he were to hex Malfoy, and Hermione was muttering Merlin only knows what to that notebook, scratching in notes only to scribble them out minutes later as she paced, unaffected by the chilling wind blowing her hair and pages about.

Malfoy strolled in awhile later, face carrying an air of boredom that made Harry not care what the curse did to him as long as he could get a single swing at that pale, pointy face.

"About time!" Harry snapped, rounding on him with balled fists and murderous intent, only held back by a tiny twitch of the curse and Hermione's stern gaze burning his back. He was sure if it were Ron waiting with him for nearly an hour; it wouldn't be Harry to throw the first punch at Malfoy.

"Is it?" Malfoy yawned, "I dozed off, sorry."

The amusement glimmering in his grey eyes like icicles sparkling in winter sunlight told Harry he wasn't sorry at all.

"Malfoy, did you bring it?" Hermione asked with a patience that must have been reserved for Ron when he was at his most unreasonable.

"Oh right," he pulled something out of his pocket in a smooth movement and pressed it into Harry's hand, "There you are Potter; I denounce you as a Malfoy house elf."

Harry knew it wasn't a sock, or a glove, or even a jumper. It was silken and smooth, warm from Malfoy's body heat and horrifyingly familiar in shape.

It was Malfoy's pants Harry held in his hand, in the middle of a courtyard.

They were the same mint green silk as his dressing gown had been, making him suspect they were part of a set. Harry was fairly confident that if he were to look, he'd find Malfoy's initials sewn into them. Hermione had turned slightly pink, but shot the Slytherin a disgusted look as he burst into laughter from the absurdity of it all, a clear, ringing sound that reminded Harry of jangling keys and slammed cupboard doors.

Harry didn't feel free. He didn't find it funny, he felt just as bound and suffocated as he did when he was sleeping in the musty cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's.

And he felt angry.

He did something stupid, something he knew would come to haunt and hurt him later just like the curse itself, but he did it, because in that one moment he wanted to be free, do something that defied Malfoy, defied Dumbledore, even defied his sanity for a split second.

In that split second, he punched Malfoy in the face.

His fist snapped forward and connected to Malfoy's laughing face with a satisfying crack that echoed through the courtyard, thrumming through the curse like frayed piano wire screaming under tension.

And it hurt, his knuckles aching, but that was nothing compared to the guilt, blood soaked, thick and dark, smothering him, a noose around his neck that demanded punishment, atonement in agony and blood for what he'd done.

Spots, crimson and somehow appealing, burst in his vision along with Malfoy, who had staggered back, clutching his face and staring at Harry with incredulous grey eyes.

How could Harry have done that? His master—Master was hurt because of Harry, Harry surely must have disobeyed some order—Harry surely deserved punishment.

But no, Malfoy had deserved to be punched, he needed to be reminded that Harry was not a plaything; he was not a real house elf awaiting his order with a smile. Malfoy was a foul, haughty git that needed to learn his place, and that was certainly not lording over Harry on a gilded throne with the curse brandished in his hand like a whip, a scepter giving him the right to make Harry miserable.

In the end, it was the blood that did it. It was lightly smudged over Malfoy lip, barely there but terribly red, staining his eyes and making them water. He felt stupid, standing here in the courtyard with a pair of silk green pants in his hand, near sniveling like Dobby. Perhaps he was more like a house elf than he'd originally thought.

It was like tears the apology spilt from his lips, though it tasted like blood, bitter and false, thick with insincerity and the fabricated pain singing through the curse, but he fought it, trying to bite it back with the reason he hit Malfoy.

"I'm sorry, M-Master, I-I d-d-didn't—no, you—Mal-Ma—fuck!"

He bit through his bottom lip, the pain spiking sanity through the curse and blood didn't seem so awful now that it was pouring down his chin. Malfoy was still staring at him, his grey eyes flickering with nervousness, obviously judging Harry mad again, and looking for an escape. Hermione was already scolding him shrilly, and the ever-simmering anger was turned to her. He sympathized inwardly with Ron for a moment before all the rage turned ice cold when a black figure stalked into the leaf-littered courtyard, the vision of doom and the promise of long, cold detentions in his billowing robes and cold eyes glittering malignantly.

"Just what is going on here Potter? Mr. Malfoy?" Snape hissed, efficiently silencing Hermione's sputtering with a single poisonous glance.

"Potter hit me!" Malfoy promptly accused, offering a blood caked finger in proof.

Snape raised an eyebrow looking at Harry, who's chin still dribbled with a torrent of blood rather than the weak trickle of Malfoy's that had already been stemmed. Harry swore he saw a hint of a smile on Snape's lips as he conveniently overlooked his injury and simply said,

"Detention, Potter. This coupled with the detentions your already serving for your, ah, unfortunate mishap with Miss Granger's botched spell makes the future possibilities for free time look quite bleak indeed."

Harry nearly bit his lip again, catching himself just as he realized he'd likely have to make a trip to the hospital wing before the next class. Malfoy had nothing but a minor split lip, nothing compared to the hole stinging through Harry's own.

"I expect to see the pair of you in my classroom promptly after dinner." He said, making Harry remember that he was still being punished for getting himself into the mess that was more torment than any amount of detentions. "Miss Granger, you'll be serving with Professor McGonagall."

Even Malfoy was glaring as the Potions master swept away, apparently cross he was serving detention at all let alone with the teacher that avoided giving him any sort of punishment.

"Well then Harry, did it work?" Hermione asked, frowning at her notebook again as if nothing had ever happened. "Did the clothes severe the connection?"

"No," Harry spat, wiping the blood from his chin, "I told you it wouldn't work."

Hermione grunted, but admitted nothing, scribbling yet again. Malfoy watched him contemptuously as he cleaned his face of the blood, shifting warily as if waiting another attack.

"Perhaps it must be the head of the House of Malfoy, rather than just me, the heir." Malfoy said and Hermione's attention snapped to him, Harry could practically hear the wheels turning violently in her head.

"Yes, why don't we go and tell you Death Eater Daddy about this curse that makes the Chosen One obey him, shall we? Why don't we just sever my head and serve it on the good china for old Snake Face?" Harry growled scathingly, watching Malfoy's pale face flush pink high on his cheeks, eyes darkening like a storm about to break out into chaos.

"Take it back, Potter, you take it back and admit you know nothing about me, you bastard." He whispered, and Harry knew that some part of Malfoy must know exactly what those words did to him for an awful smile stretched his lips.

The curse demanded an answer, vibrating with urgency, but Harry thought quickly, grappling with his own words as he bit them out.

"I take it back, M-Malfoy, but I know some things about you. You're spoiled rotten, cruel, and cold. I know that you have nothing but your name, and you care for nothing but that and yourself."

Malfoy took three swift steps forward and for a moment, Harry thought that he'd be struck in retaliation, but Malfoy only took the smothering proximity as he had before in the library, slender fingers digging short nails into his jaw, tilting his head to the side as he used his few inches of height to his advantage, looming over Harry.

"You know nothing about me Potter, and you never will." He breathed into his ear, and Harry found his body heat stifling, his breath far too sweet, it made him think of warm winter evenings before a roaring fire, coupled with Malfoy's December sky eyes. Nights shared with another, filled with gentle caresses like how Malfoy's fingers were—

No. That wasn't what he should be thinking, that wasn't what the curse should be thinking. It was like someone else's thoughts, tailored to fit Harry, were invading his mind, thoughts that likely belonged to one of Malfoy's simpering, skirt-swishing admirers.

He knew he shouldn't feel jealous either, especially of those slutty, pure-blood girls.

"Potter, are you listening?"

"Yes, Master." He replied automatically, face possibly flushing further, Malfoy still lingering at his ear, white-blonde hair tickling his nose and invading his senses with the smell of—mint?

"Good, Potter. Now there's something I'd like you to do for me. Will you do it for me, Potter?" he hissed, a smirk surely on his lips.

"Yes, Master." Harry answered helplessly, the praise singing like the hot burst of fireworks.

"Now listen carefully, Potter."

~o0o~

Draco couldn't bring himself to care that he had detention; he didn't even mind that Granger had ordered him to come with Potter after said detention to the library for some new manner of experiment against the curse.

Though she insisted that it wasn't a _curse_ it was merely an _enchantment gone wrong_ Draco could see that this was a curse to Potter, the thing making him obey Draco was a crippling disease. Why else would Potter flush as if with fever, all weak-kneed and glazed eyes, staring at him so close…?

Perhaps he'd been wrong to get so near to Potter just to order him, the action haunted him more than the punch Potter had given him, which was forgotten but for the persistent sting of his lip where it'd split. Potter himself had bit clean through his lip with that habit of his that annoyed Draco more than the ruffling of his untidy hair, along with the copper smell of blood Potter's raven locks smelled like clean air and fresh laundry, better than any cologne he'd ever had the pleasure of whiffing—

It was certainly haunting him, as any order he gave his new slave, and order he gave when he was close enough to kiss the Gryffindor anyway.

But Draco distracted himself with thoughts of what Potter must be going through now, his true punishment, not for the punch but rather for his assumptions. Those careless words writhed in him like a sack full of Flobberworms making him feel disgusted and furious. How dare Potter pretend to know anything about him? He didn't know what Draco cared about, and it was far, far more than his name.

Titles of any sort had lost their splendor after he'd been permanently labeled with the mark on his arm.

Maybe he was cold and cruel, more than a little spoiled even, but that gave Potter no right to speak about his father, his father who was suffering in his own home with that—that monster.

"Fuck!"

Ah, there was Potter now.

He'd heard the rumors churning during Charms and was satisfied to find Potter hadn't yet found a clever loophole to avoid his latest order. Draco had thought it fitting after discovering that the Golden Boy actually _swore_! He then thought; why not exploit that fact in a very public fashion?

"Ron, just shut the fuck up."

He stalked carefully behind a flock of Ravenclaws as he watched the familiar group of the Weasel, Mudblood, and Potter trudge through the crowd. The Mudblood was immersed in that book of hers and the Weasel looked harassed, ears scarlet and face frowning, then there was Potter ducked between them, a hand clamped over his mouth and eyes fixed forward, ignoring the murmurs about him.

He grinned and patiently waited.

The Weaslette came bouncing up and wriggled herself within their ranks, beaming and tossing her hair, looking as happy as Draco felt at that moment.

"Hey there, Harry," she smiled, "How are you? I heard from Seamus that you were acting funny lately."

Draco thought he was the only one who heard it as the rest of the students were too distracted by what followed.

The sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh silenced the corridor and froze it mid-step, every eye directed to where Harry Potter stood in front of Ginny Weasley with an angry red slap mark on his face.

She huffed into the silence, but the mutters broke out again as she stormed away, hair swinging like flickering flames amongst the black of the school robes. The Weasel and Potter were whispering furiously to each other, the Mudblood holding the ginger back as he hissed at Potter, who was spluttering and holding his cheek.

Potter had called his best friend's sister a slut.

And Draco couldn't stop laughing.

He was vaguely aware that the Weasel was glaring at him now as he leaned on the wall, and that Potter was actually striding through the thinning throng toward him. Draco's laughter died when he found himself backed into an alcove nearby, cornered by a livid Harry Potter.

"Fucking bastard," Potter growled and Draco found himself smiling again. Potter swearing seemed to mar his goody-goody image and shape him into something else, something dangerous and wild, and something Draco found he liked far too much.

Now he really was afraid, backed into this corner while students passed just inches away. He was afraid of his own thoughts while Potter was just inches away, less then inches away, he still smelled like blood though his lips was healed, looking new and more plump than ever, waiting to be bitten or sucked or—

"My, my, Potter, what do you have to say for yourself after offending young Miss Weasley? Accurate, perhaps, but it was still rather tactless to state such a truth in front of her brother." Draco purred, nearly against those lips, watching Potter flush and strain against the curse.

"Bloody prat, you—you're going to pay—you shirt lifting rapist."

Draco blinked. True, he'd worded his command to loosen Potter's tongue and spice up his every sentence with a few words no one would say in front of their grandmother, but this was…odd, to say the very least.

But interesting nonetheless.

"Is that what you think I am along with being a spoiled brat, Potter? Maybe you've one part right, but I'd have to be in your place, shoving you into a corner, to find out the other bit."

That certainly scared him off, he leapt backwards and Draco could laugh again, his breath fluttery and short, but he laughed, and kept laughing until he was sure it was as forced as Potter's obedience.

~o0o~

Draco hovered in front of the Potions classroom door, half dreading the detention he was about to receive and half excited. Severus knew about the curse, though he obviously wouldn't be one to righteously take the Gryffindor's victim's side and ruin all Draco's fun, it was likely indeed, Draco could get away with all manner of mischief right under his guardian's nose, but it was Potter himself he was dreading.

There'd been a threat heavy in Potter's voice before Draco had scared him off, and he knew that he wasn't going to get away with this last order scot-free, in fact he was lucky to have survived this long without the Weasel hexing him or McGonagall giving him more detention. Yet it wasn't the danger of Potter and his Gryffindors that had shaken him, it was still _just _Potter.

Potter the homophobe.

It wasn't as if his sexual orientation was some scandalous secret anyway, indeed it was common among pure-bloods, though their fate was never as easy, especially when you were a Slytherin. Draco knew full well he was destined to marry some pure-blood girl that he didn't love, eventually fall into a friendship with, and have affairs on the weekends, just as his parents did. Though he appreciated the male form more, he knew he had his place which was, eventually, fathering an heir to the Malfoy name.

He really hated names.

He really hated Potter's name.

He liked the Weasley's for a moment however, because Potter was tromping up to him, the mark on his cheek renewed and practically glowing.

"The Weaslette isn't so forgiving, hm? It probably didn't help that you're still saying naughty things." He drawled, arching a brow and wondering what those green eyes saw when he looked at Draco now.

"Sod off, bloody wanker." Potter retorted, not looking at all, finding interest in a potion stain splattered across the wall that Draco knew Longbottom had caused.

So he just waited, feeling vindictive as he went through the long, long mental list he'd composed just for Potter and his lovely little curse. When the door swung open and revealed a glowering Potions master, all of those orders paled when Draco realized what was about to happen, when Severus spoke, and looked at Potter.

"What is that your saying, Mr. Potter? I'm sure you can share your thoughts with more than just the floor."

Potter had been growling blasphemies at the stain as if trying to frighten it away, most of which involving Draco, blunt objects, and Unforgivables. Draco waited with bated breath. Did Severus already know what he'd done to Potter?

"Nothing, you greasy tosser."

Severus raised an eyebrow, murder sparking in his eyes.

A surprise then, he didn't know at all.

Potter had squirmed under one of Draco's godfather's most terrifying looks, the piercing sort that seemed to snake through you with bladed edges, the same sort he'd given Draco that first night as he begged for death.

He shook his head to clear it before that glare was turned to him while he dawdled in the doorway, Potter already having taken his seat, beginning to scrub at what was likely a blunder from the infamous Neville Longbottom. Rather than being given a task such as manual labor, Draco was given lines. What he was to write or how many nonexistent sentences were not given, however.

Draco took this as Severus' code for 'go to sleep for all I care'.

And although he didn't show it, he cared a lot.

Potter was still grumbling as he worked at an unmoving blob of some congealed potion at the seat beside him and Draco watched, chin in his hands as he listened with half an ear to Potter's oaths and profanities.

Within a half-conscious half hour he found that Potter favored the word 'fuck' and never said anything against women, save for the Mudblood, but that was mild in nature and largely directed at her 'bloody little notebook with all the fucking answers that do nothing but condemn me'.

"You know, you never _asked_ me to lift my last order from you, Potter." Draco yawned, watching as Potter tensed and glanced to the front of the classroom where the Potions master was not, having disappeared into his office the moment detention started, a single raised brow directing Draco to harass Potter for the both of them.

"And why the fuck would you do that when you seem to be fucking enjoying it so bloody much?" the Gryffindor growled and Draco thought for a moment he'd been found out, Potter had pillaged his mind and found the thoughts he'd buried, the small, hot, off-hand thoughts that found his naughty language as pleasing as talented hands down his spine.

No, that was mad. The thoughts themselves were mad besides, but to think Potter was a Legilimens was just stupid.

"I'd do it if you asked me nicely, you'll have to say please and all that tripe, of course." He said sweetly.

Potter glowered at him from under his fringe, but said neither profanity nor plea. Silence stretched between them, only broken by the scrape of the brush Severus had given Potter and the scratch of Draco's quill as he mindlessly doodled.

"I bet you've never said please once in your fucking life, Malfoy." Potter finally scoffed and Draco blinked into awareness, looking down at his paper to find he'd drawn Neville Longbottom drowning in a cauldron. He smirked.

"What makes you say that, Potter?" he muttered, voice slurred with sleep. It'd been more than an hour since they'd been in the drafty dungeons.

"You get anything you fucking want; I've mentioned you're fucking spoiled, haven't I?" Potter was looking at him with an insolent smirk that belonged to a Slytherin.

He was sure he knew exactly how to wipe it away.

He leaned over, the motion he'd only used twice like a reflex as his fingers found Potter's defiant chin, melting it to slack-jawed shock as he brushed against the feather-light touch of Potter's bedraggled hair.

"_Please,_" he whispered, "Now it's your turn, Potter. Be a good elf and bow and _beg._"

Potter jerked backwards, babbling, his eyes screwed shut and brow furrowed and beginning to sweat as he fought the order, his hands clutching to nothing as his own back seemed to fight against him, the curse binding him to obedience. For once Draco watched without regret as Potter visibly itched to hurt himself. He deserved to be punished for putting these thoughts into Draco's head, thoughts that seemed to smolder as he savored the scent that lingered, the scent of Potter.

With a final cry of protest against himself, Potter bowed and he begged, for what, Draco wasn't even sure of, but it was music to his ears, mixed apologies, Potter's new favorite word, and Draco's new favorite word.

_Master._

He reached a hand into Potter's shaking head, entangling it into his untidy hair and jerking him mercilessly upward, facing those brilliantly green eyes, his own watering with mirth.

"Alright, Potter," he chuckled, "I forgive you. You're a very good elf, don't worry. You serve your master well in fact; you're your master's _favorite._"

Potter's eyes suddenly grew impossibly wide and he wrenched out of Draco grasp and flew out the classroom door.

Draco sat, bemused, his hand still warm from Potter's hair and the floor still stain with the blood Potter had left behind from biting his lip again.

~o0o~

* * *

**A/N~ Sorry for the wait! Happy New Year!**

**Thanks for reading, please review!**


	4. Unwinding

Unwinding

Harry was in trouble and he knew it.

He tore down the corridor, stumbling in the unfamiliar dungeons, desperate and reckless in his search—sanctity—solitude—he needed it _now._

He found it in the form of a broom cupboard that stank of decay, throwing himself inside despite the stench and slamming the door shut, barely flinching as his magic crackled of its own volition and cast a Locking Charm, he was too preoccupied with what his body was doing. His breath came hitching in small gasps, sweat made his robes cling to his back, but it was not from the dash to this place, it was not even from the fear of running out on one of Snape's detentions, or the rancid odor of the cramped space he'd forced himself into.

It was all heat, rushing and roaring like a firework gone mad inside him, the threads of the curse, its burning fuse as it sang with a cacophony of pleasure. It felt so _good_—too good, he knew, but he couldn't think past the scent of mint wafting about his seemingly empty, dizzied head like a fog, a voice whispering through it, purring and promising.

_"I forgive you. You're a very good elf; don't worry. You serve your master well in fact; you're your master's __favorite.__"_

Why did he have to say that? Making him _bow_—that wonderful, terrible sensation of the ultimate show of submission to his master, Merlin, Harry had thought he could survive that, but then the prat had to go on to say that he was his _favorite. _That had simply been too much.

"Fuck,"

Malfoy had made him hard.

It was mad to think about it, that nothing more than a whisper of words and a chaste touch had done this to him. Why should it? House elves couldn't possibly do feel this all the time? Had the curse somehow addled with his libido? He glared down at the offending bulge in his trousers but saw nothing but grey, Malfoy's December sky eyes that made him long for the warm embrace of his body, the smell of spearmint on his skin and the taste of sweat and blood.

He swore again, fighting the pulse of his own body now that implored him to do something with the same irresistible tug of the strings entangled within him. He did do something; he thought about how wrong it was, how right it felt, how stupid it was for him to be in this situation in the first place and how much he would hate himself after he was cured.

But, giving in for this split second, he mostly thought of Malfoy.

He reached down, hand sliding down his chest, abdomen and finally his waistband, setting off a wildfire beneath his fingers. Carefully, tentatively, as if waiting to be caught and accused, likely by his own guilty mind that was too hazed at the moment to take notice to what he was doing, he palmed himself through his trousers, biting his bloodied lip. He remembered Malfoy's gentle fingers on his jaw and his merciless hands in his hair, he imagined them clutching at his head now, fingers tight and grasping as Harry served his Master with an inexperienced tongue and abused lips curling around—

He moaned, the sound muffled in the abruptly stifling room, his hands blindly fumbling at his zipper as he pressed his back further into the cool wall, pretending that it was a hard body he was leaning into, lips skimming over his neck, smirking and bruised. His hand found its way into his pants and wrapped flush around his aching cock, but his clumsy, Quidditch callused hands were nothing like Malfoy's slender, smooth, talented fingers. He groaned, not knowing whether it was from pleasure, frustration, or mortification as he longed for Draco Malfoy's hands to wank him off.

It was disgusting; tossing off in a filthy broom cupboard in the dungeons to thoughts, fantasies about Draco Malfoy, and yet, past his rational self, into the curse, and maybe, if he was being honest, past the curse itself, he loved it. He gasped as he pressed his thumb to the slit at the head of his cock, feeling the pearly pre-come beading out, and then began to stroke himself slowly, pace quickening as words sprung unbidden to his bloodied lips, profanities and pleas, but one word repeated, over and over, ultimately sending him over the edge and spiraling like a rogue firework into the most mind blowing orgasm he'd ever had.

"Master!" he cried out as he came spectacularly into his hand, and he still murmured it reverently as he rode out the last fizzling waves, thrusting into his slickened hand.

It was only ten minutes later leaning on the slimy wall in the cramped space, feeling sticky and sated, did he realize what he said and what effect it still had on him, making his spent cock stir even after the fantastic wank.

Draco Malfoy, his Master.

He felt more tainted now than he had in the hospital wing when he thought he was infected with some deadly, incurable disease. This seemed worse, both deadly and incurable, and deeper, like a parasitic tumor sitting on his conscious, feeding him bursts of pleasant warmth through the ice-cold guilt and unpleasant heat in his face.

He wondered why everything had to be so difficult for him, why he couldn't just love Ginny like he was supposed to and not fancy blokes.

Not fancy Malfoy especially.

But he didn't fancy Malfoy, the curse just did, and if Harry happened to like the way he smelled and the color of his eyes, it most certainly _did not _mean that Harry fancied Malfoy.

He straightened, casting a Cleansing Charm, staring dully at his wand and briefly considering trying to _Scorgify_ his brain or simply Obliviate himself.

That would have made facing the Slytherin whose very name had just made him come much easier.

He opened the door with a mutter of a spell, peering out into the torch-lit corridor, the darkness of the dungeons more palpable than any other part of the castle, especially in Slytherin territory, the shadows seemed solid, the chill in the air creeping and silent, like a specter slinking across the stone, nearing him, drawing ever closer—

"There you are,"

Harry started, whirling about and nearly poking Malfoy's eye with his wand, who stood unfazed but for an annoyed look, though a smirk pulled at his lips as Harry's chest heaved from both the simple sight of the blond and the fright.

Malfoy was like a light in the dark, his white-blond hair like a beacon in the darkness, pale skin glowing in an almost unearthly way, reminding Harry of stark white skies in January, though his stormy eyes still swam with the coldness of the dungeon and dark secrets it held. No matter how chilled his gaze or the gloom around them, a part of the curse threaded inside him sparked with warmth.

Harry must have been staring like an idiot because the smile faded as Malfoy rolled his eyes, dispersing the vision of unearthly beauty and conjuring the prat Harry knew and scarcely tolerated.

"Really Potter, a simple order stupefied you that much? Can't stand the humiliation?" he sneered.

Harry frowned at the tightening of the curse, "It's not that," he snapped truthfully, hoping Malfoy wouldn't ask just what it was then.

"Well come then, we've been ordered to the library to the book-cleaving, bushy-haired bi—" Malfoy silenced at the threatening flick of Harry wand, turning to prowl into the darkness of the dungeon.

"What about detention?" Harry asked, trotting to catch up to Malfoy's long-legged strides.

"I told Severus that you were going to be ill so I ordered you out of the room. I wouldn't want you to retch all over his delicate ingredients, naturally, don't question it." he added firmly and Harry felt the disbelief and suspicion flare through the cold. He fully expected another months worth of evenings in the dungeons for daring to skive one of Snape's detentions, so naturally he took Malfoy's words as a blatant lie, but the curse had stitched his lips together, he been told not to question it, but he had to question _something._

"Why do you call Snape Severus?" he blurted and didn't back down from the disdaining, if not baffled look Malfoy gave him.

"Well, He's my godfather; it's odd to call him anything else." He said slowly, and then smiled, "I believe I've out grown calling him 'Uncle Sev'rus'."

Harry couldn't imagine the Dungeon Bat being called anything as childish as 'Uncle Sev'rus' without poisoning whoever dare utter such a thing. It was also hard to envision a young little Malfoy, unable to pronounce the Potions professor's name. This also made him wonder how close Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape were for Lucius to name him the godfather of his son, though he supposed Death Eaters would be relatively close, it explained why Snape especially favored Malfoy and not all the little Death Eaters in training anyway.

This made him think of Lucius Malfoy, away in Azkaban, the place Harry had put him last summer. Lucius was obviously a Death Eater indeed, Harry had suspected it all along, but had his son known? Did Draco want to follow his father's footsteps? Was he walking along side a Death Eater now?

He stared at Malfoy, who seemed more relaxed in the dungeons than any other place in the castle, walking with both his familiar swagger and an eased air, even as he stood inches away from his arch enemy. Wouldn't he have already killed him if he were? Ordered Harry to turn himself into his precious Dark Lord?

The walked in silence all the way to the library, Malfoy trapped in his own thoughts as Harry witnessed his demeanor become more and more minutely defensive as the ascended toward the library. A part of Harry, obviously the one drunken to insanity through the wrappings of the curse, didn't want Malfoy to have to worry and be on the defense. Harry was here to protect him, so his Master shouldn't—

He growled at his thoughts and blinked when he realized they'd reached the library, it was largely empty but for a few diligent Ravenclaws buried in their books. Hermione fit in perfectly among them, again occupying the space he suspected Malfoy usually claimed as his own from the way his eyes narrowed and lip curled. It was a convenient spot for their situation, hidden from prying eyes and silenced by dust and thick, forgotten pages.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked as they sat down. It would have been much easier to dispel the disgustingly groveling thoughts he was having about Malfoy if he could draw off Ron's temper toward the Slytherin.

"He _better_ be studying," Hermione replied, she was steadily forgiving Ron now, "But he wouldn't have wanted to come even if he wasn't."

She sent a pointed look toward Malfoy, who merely sneered and Harry rolled his eyes. The buzz from his…misadventure in the broom cupboard was fading and the weariness of the day was dragging down on him. He just wanted to flop into bed and _not_ think about Malfoy. In fact, forgetting this entire day wouldn't be unwelcome.

"Well, then," Hermione said briskly, opening her little leather-bound book with a scowl, "Let's get started then, shall we?"

"Started on what, precisely, Granger?" Malfoy drawled, "Do I get to make Potter do things again?"

"No," she said sharply, effectively making his eager smile drop, "It's purely research today."

"Well, that's no fun."

"Stop pouting Malfoy, its nauseating."

Malfoy glared at him and Harry just stared back. It honestly was nauseating; the curse was writhing with need to do something—something _fun_—apparently to please his master. After giving in earlier, it seemed the curse was taking advantage of his weakened will and trying to make him be the perfect little slave, forgoing the need for direct orders and pulling him to serve Malfoy's every need.

He hated it.

"Anyway," Hermione said loudly, drawing their attention, "I've been speaking with Professor McGonagall and she seems to think my mistake was probably in the incantation."

"What was the incantation again?" Harry asked.

"_Purus Sanguine Nolle Tenetur,_"

Yes, that was it indeed. His blood seemed to prickle at the words, and they rang like a harp's high note on the curse, echoing and haunting.

"'Pure blood unwillingly bound'?" Malfoy murmured, and Harry and Hermione's eyes snapped to him incredulously.

"What?" he grumbled, shifting back in his chair, "I've studied Latin, it's a pure-blood tradition. But anyway, shouldn't something have been added to the end of that?"

"Why's it even say 'pure-blood'?" Harry demanded.

Hermione watched them for a moment, before lowering her gaze, eyes shining in defeat and Harry immediately felt guilty.

"It probably should, yes." She said softly, "And as for the pure-blood bit, I've told you, Harry, that it was meant to break the bond between a house elf and their pure-blood master, that's the only part I've mastered, except…"

She looked up at Harry and he was afraid she might cry again in front of Malfoy, he balled a fist, ready to punch him again, harder, if he were to dare laugh at her even if Harry was tired of her weepiness. She took a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together and plowed on tearlessly, however.

"That's where my definite mistake was, Harry became bonded to the first pure-blood he stumbled into and that was Malfoy."

"So when Potter was falling all over himself and I caught him, he became my house elf then?" Malfoy inquired lightly.

"Yes," Hermione frowned.

"Brilliant, now I'm actually glad I let you touch me, Potter."

Harry glowered at the bookshelf but refrained to mention how physical Malfoy had been lately, all that chin touching and hair grabbing, not to mention his lack of respect for personal space.

He convinced himself that the gooseflesh pebbling his arms was from revulsion.

~o0o~

The way Granger had told them about the curse, it was unlikely it would be broken anytime soon, so Draco could enjoy having the Boy Who Lived as his house elf for a long time to come it seemed.

And wasn't that fun? At least when the Golden Git didn't punch him, that is. The rest of the night he'd been subdued, likely from Granger's unfortunate news, brooding on his own thoughts with a distant look about him. He complied to Draco's every command with a minimal amount of flustering and not a single glare. Admittedly, he was warily subtle about it, but it was obvious enough for even the ever-oblivious Weasel to realize he was being ordered about. A dropped quill, a carried cloak, Merlin, he'd even gotten Potter to tie his shoe for him! Although now said shoe was in knots that even Draco's more crafty spells couldn't untie didn't discourage him. Potter's indomitable will seemed to be weakening under the curse and Draco was positively delighted, if not almost concerned. Wasn't Potter supposed to be the one to defeat the Dark Lord and in turn earn Draco his freedom?

That was the only thing they shared now, Draco mused as he flopped into bed unceremoniously, the undying will to be free. A curse hung over the both of them, deeper than even the one entangled within Potter.

Expectation is a terrible thing.

Draco soon learned that even though Potter was hopelessly bound by a curse that took away his will on Draco's will, his own indomitable will was still just that—indomitable.

The detentions continued, as did the fruitless research parties with the Mudblood in the library, rather, in _his_ corner of the library that expressly belonged to him and he was graciously allowing them to use. Honestly he was glad it was only he and the Gryffindor Trio that knew about the curse. After all, expectation was a terrible thing and he didn't know if he would be able to comply with the rest of Slytherin's demand for Potter's punishment for just being Potter.

Draco knew that the curse was punishment in itself from the look in Potter's eyes whenever he caught himself using the word 'Master' (to Draco's delight) or effortlessly, almost absently tending to Draco's needs, handing him quills or conjuring him a drink when his voice grew particularly hoarse from ruthlessly cutting down Granger's theories about pure-bloods, or simply from scorning Potter himself.

But he did have an image to keep up, along with a hatred toward Potter. He also took a guilty pleasure in watching him fight, straining against the ties of the curse and glaring at Draco with a fiery hatred. Draco liked that heat, that passion; he'd grown quite tired of cold looks, being in Slytherin after all.

So these detentions, long, cold, and dull, and the meetings, shorter, duller, and maddeningly useless, led to conversations, conversations that did not, for once, end with names being called and glares exchanged.

It started with a question, one that was never exactly answered.

"Are you going to be playing Quidditch?" Potter asked, idly flipping through _Quidditch Through the Ages_ for the hundredth-some time. Draco wondered if he'd ever read anything else.

"Haven't your followers made you captain this year?" he countered, he himself reading a novel Pansy had forced into his hands.

"Yeah, they have." Potter answered without batting an eye. Draco found it harder to get a rise out of him as of lately. He supposed Potter was just getting used to his quipping.

"And the Weaslette is a Chaser, yeah?"

"Why do you always call her that? You're so awful to her."

Maybe not quite.

"I've a hoard of other pet names, if you'd prefer Potter." he drawled. It was true, he'd taken strong, meaning boundless and never-ending, hatred toward her since she'd slapped Potter. Although that should make him like her more, it didn't. At all.

"Shove off," Potter remarked dully, flipping another page and sighing.

"You going to go into professional Quidditch then? I'm sure every team would clamor at the chance to have Harry bloody Potter on their team." He asked, heaving a sigh of his own and wondering when they'd be released, Draco was growing almost bored of taunting Potter.

"Dunno. It all matters,"

_If I live_, hung in the silence between them and Draco nodded.

"Yeah, me too."

After that, the quiet was less like a screamingly obvious thing and more…amicable, almost. It was never a cold thing though, like the reveries when he spoke to a fellow Slytherin, it was always warm with mutual thoughts, be they morbid or not. Draco liked Potter's heat about everything, even when it wasn't merely getting a rise out of him, he was always quietly smoldering about something, his cause, his loyalty, he was a Gryffindor after all, meaning completely transparent, through and through.

He was burned though, the day Blaise got detention with Snape for doing any number of devious things. Draco supposed it was probably hexing a Gryffindor the way Potter was glaring at Blaise, and the way Blaise smiled back cheekily. Draco resigned himself to an evening of shameless gossip instead of his and Potter's short, meaningless conversations that either escaladed into shouting matches and ruthless orders, or simply remained on the subject of the weather or Quidditch.

"What're you in for Blaise, dear?" He asked, "What curse did you use?"

"I'm offended, Draco Malfoy, for you to assume I'd be so barbaric as to hex a fellow student." Blaise scoffed, but went on unabashedly as he draped himself in the chair beside Draco, "It was a Leg-Locker curse on a Hufflepuff."

"Excellent, choice as always." Draco nodded and Potter snorted from his place in front of them.

"What about you, love?" Blaise inquired, sneering at the back of Potter's bedraggled head. "You've been here nearly a week now."

"The Chosen One here got in a mood and decided to take it out on me." He slipped into the familiar, cold snarl easily, "We exchanged respective blows and Severus found us."

"Ah," Blaise said, but gave him a suspicious look that Draco faced with his usual disdaining façade. Blaise knew that Draco didn't usually lower himself to physical violence, head on at that instead of sneaky blows from behind, but when it came to Potter, many of his standards were dropped.

Blaise pointed that out far too often for Draco to be comfortable.

"So then Potter's causing havoc again, is he?" Blaise murmured, his voice carrying easily through the cavernous classroom. Potter shifted somewhat but made no response. Draco knew in that one twitch, Potter was summoning all the restraint he had.

"He seems to have been off lately, hasn't he Draco?"

"Seems so, didn't he have that little row with the Weaslette? Personally I think the papers were right last year, he's losing it." Draco agreed, smirking when Potter tensed further, he could practically hear his fingers curling into the battered cover of _Quidditch Through the Ages_.

"From what I hear, they're not such a couple anymore." Blaise drawled, voice rising as he grinned at Potter's back, which was suddenly painfully still.

"Why's that?" Draco asked, his interest infuriatingly piqued, vehemently denied all sorrow at the fact that Potter was a homophobe. He only happened to like it when Potter swore, and that was only because it was so rare that it was fascinating…in an arousing sort of way.

"Well, Pans says that Queenie heard from that Goldstein Hufflepuff that dated the Weaslette said that she said she has concerns about her poor Boy Who Lived."

"Do tell, whatever flaw could Perfect Potter have?"

"It seems the he has a disinterest in snogging and the like, although he's not without his desires."

"Potter's a two-timer?" Draco gasped.

"No, not exactly." Blaise muttered mysteriously.

"What are you on about?"

"Well, according to the Weaslette herself, he's simply not interested in girls."

"You mean he's that much of a Saint he's—"

"Draco, he's one of us, love."

"What do you mean by that?" Draco asked slowly, watching from the corner of his eye as Potter stayed frozen but for the twitching of his hands on his book.

"Love, need I spell it out? Unbelievable as it may be, Potter's a ponce."

The world seemed to freeze for a moment, the echo of a dropped book ringing through the silence that followed. This silence was more than warm in the drafty dungeons, it was scorching. Potter was very, very angry and he had every right to be because once Pansy found out about something, the entire castle was soon to follow.

"Is it true then, Potter?" Blaise called, Draco seemed to be the only one that noticed the temperature rising, Potter's fury pressing down on him. Evidently the ability to sense Potter's swinging moods came with familiarity and as much as Draco was loathe to admit it, over the past weeks of detentions he'd become more familiar with Potter than he ever thought he would.

"Answer him, Potter." Draco ordered, he suddenly wanted to know the answer himself, after all hadn't Potter called him a shirt-lifter? Draco wanted to know more than just Potter's favorite Quidditch team or why he wore mismatching socks on occasion.

And Potter fought, for the first time in awhile, the muscles on his neck standing out and his head twitching to the side, hands clasping so hard to the edges of the table that Draco thought he might fling it over or break it in two.

"Yes," he snapped at last, and Blaise raised his brows appraisingly, scorning the Gryffindor need to tell the truth. It was only Draco who knew Potter would have loved to have lied through his teeth, if he could.

"How long?" Blaise asked, but Potter didn't answer, or even turn around. Blaise's voice didn't have a hold on him.

But Draco's did, a dangerous hold like a noose around both their necks, even if he wasn't commanding him.

"Why is it anyway Potter? Is it because the Weaslette is so much like a bloke that you fancy—"

It wasn't a fist that hit him this time like in the courtyard or with a wall of Potter in the corridor, this was what he was far more familiar, a blast of magic. It threw him out on his seat and skidding across the table behind him, finally landing on his arse with a skull-jarring thud. It was like a long forgotten reflex as he sprang up, brandishing his wand and casting something vicious Potter's way. Potter blocked it with a _Protego, _but Draco blundered on, storming closer and closer as he hurled curse after curse, blocked hex after hex, until he was close enough to feel Potter's angry breath huffing out.

Potter's wand dug into his ribs and Draco jammed his in the same place, both glaring each other down with barred teeth and nasty hexes on the tips of their tongues. But no more spells were cast, not even insults exchanged as they stood, motionless and out of breath. All the thoughts of ordering Potter off the Astronomy Tower faded from Draco's head when that freshly laundered smell attacked him like an enchantment, like linens hanging in the breeze of a green spring day, green like the color of Potters eyes, so close…

The animosity, the heat had shifted, into something more feral, the silence roaring in his ears and punctuated by every sharp breath Potter took. Potter's lips were still torn from his infuriatingly attractive habit of nibbling on them when uncomfortable, which seemed to be quite often now. They looked like they needed to be soothed, worked over by a pair soft as satin and immaculately unharmed.

Draco never bit his lips.

He could have said any number of words, any numbers of orders to get his way at that moment so that he could leave this detention happy and sated, but he didn't, in a fluke split second of altruism, he didn't take what he wanted.

Instead of pressing them to Potter's he curled his lips into a sneer and murmured, "What you said about the Weaslette is true you know. Though she may be as flat as a ten-year-old boy, she still can manage to shag any guy she wants. Except for you, that is, Potter. I bet that just broke her heart and sent her flying to Anthony Goldstein's cock, didn't it?"

It was hurtful and cutting and true if the look in Potter's eyes were anything to go by. Those eyes, verdant and passionate, were that last thing he saw before, with a jolt of pain, everything went as black as his tainted, sardonic and shriveled heart.

~o0o~

**A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review!**


	5. Stitched

Stitched

Harry couldn't decide whether he felt more guilty or satisfied. Oh yes, the curse was in an absolute panic about having just hexed its master into unconsciousness, but that was fabricated, something he could fight against.

The hurt wasn't though.

He didn't know why he should feel like this, why he shouldn't have expected it to happen. Why should he expect any less after a few meaningless days and even more meaningless prattle about the weather and Quidditch? Was he expecting Malfoy to not to retaliate when he hexed him? Not to be his obnoxious, sneering self? Not to hate Ginny just because she was Harry's friend?

Not to hate Harry?

He didn't even know why he'd cursed Malfoy, not really. He blamed it on reflex for the moment because he found no offense in what Malfoy had actually said about Ginny expect for…bitterness at himself for the truth of it all. He'd failed in what was expected of him. He could never have that fairy tale ending—defeating Voldemort, marrying Ginny, becoming an Auror or professional Quidditch player and so on.

Then again, he was Harry Potter after all, and nothing could ever be that simple for him.

It was all expectation, expectation he wasn't entirely sure he could fulfill.

Sharp, harsh reality set in along with a particularly painful constriction of the curse when he realized that Zabini was yelling at him from across the room, his wand trained on him uncertainly as he made general remarks about his sanity. Harry just ignored him, his voice a mere buzz as the curse flickered through his nerves and made him fluster over Malfoy's fallen body crumpled on the dungeon floor with the oddest look of peace across his features.

This made Harry think of death, eternally tranquil faces peering out of caskets with the same expression Malfoy's pale face wore, this was not a good thing to think about because the threads within him knitted painfully, guilt snaking through them, images of his own death flashing across his eyes-throwing himself off the Astronomy Tower—dear Merlin, he'd killed his master—

No, he hadn't. Malfoy's chest was rising and falling, his brow even furrowed for a moment, breath wheezing. He was most certainly alive, but the curse did not relieve him of the crazy worry clouding his rational thought, instead insisting on inquiring of how long Malfoy may live now. What had Harry even hit him with? He was fairly sure it was a Stunner, but in that spilt second before he cast, he'd been blinded. Blinded by Malfoy's proximity, his damnably incredible scent, his cruel words, and his eyes, blazing at first before freezing over, confusing and somehow disappointing Harry.

He knelt beside Malfoy's form, which suddenly looked frighteningly fragile, a speculation he couldn't decide whether it was he or the curse made. In all sense, he should hate Malfoy at the moment and not give a damn about whether or not he was hurt, but the curse did, and inexplicably, he did too.

"Malfoy?" he asked, whispering for some reason even as Zabini loudly voiced his concerns.

"You've killed him, haven't you Potter? I knew you've gone round the twist, Draco was right and now you've killed him!" his voice was wavering as he half hid behind a table, not daring to get any closer lest the mad murderer Harry Potter come after him next.

Harry snorted, but it sounded more like a squeak as he continued to prod at Malfoy, calling his name with different inflections and pitches. The Slytherin didn't stir as Harry's panic mounted, eventually resorting to slapping him soundly across the cheek, an action that Malfoy usually deserved, but it only made Harry cringe now. He didn't move, it was like he was asleep, dreaming feverishly from the way his eyes flickered back and forth behind his shut lids. Harry was maddeningly reminded of that old Muggle fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, and with every minute that passed without a response, the idea of kissing Malfoy to wake him from the enchantment holding him seemed more and more appealing.

Malfoy did have some effeminate about him, but it was offset by his low, drawling voice and sharply chiseled features, maybe it was just his eyelashes, almost white and as delicate as snowflakes framing his December sky eyes. Harry was near enough to see them now, near enough to find that Malfoy wore cologne, dark and musky, which was always overwhelmed by the scent of mint, and near enough to feel Malfoy's labored breaths wafting up, laced with something sweet, probably the Sugar Quill he'd been sucking on earlier.

"Draco?" he breathed, surprising himself as the Slytherin's given name slipped off his tongue like an unfamiliar spell, an incantation that captured his heart and sent it fluttering when Malfoy's ceaselessly moving eyes stilled.

It was only then that some common sense bubbled up through his senseless worry, nagging at him with a curious combination of Hermione's patient lecturing and Malfoy's irritated snark.

_Counter-curse, you dolt._

_ "Rennervate," _he mumbled and gasped in stupid shock when Malfoy was revived, sputtering and coughing as if he'd been drowned.

"Fuck," he choked, holding to his side and squinting at the high ceiling, "That was one hell of a spell…"

"I'm sorry," Harry blurted, and it was not just the noose about his neck that was the curse asphyxiating the apology from him, "Merlin, I didn't mean it to be—I didn't know—are you alright?"

Malfoy answered neither affirmative nor negative, his eyes sliding shut and taking a deep breath, shifting as if he wanted to turn to his side to get more comfortable. Harry watched, his hands and wand held over him as uselessly as Zabini's bitching from the other side of the Potion's classroom.

"What should I do?" he asked, his voice hushed and hoarse, "Master, what should I do?"

He didn't even stumble on the word; he needed it right then, latching to the curse like a lifeline as he felt he was hopelessly floundering in his own helplessness. For once, in that split second, he wanted to be lead, allowing the enchantment gone wrong tying him to Malfoy be his leash to guide him.

Inexplicably, despite all that had transpired that day and all the days before that, he trusted Malfoy.

Malfoy looked over his shoulder at him, having twisted to his side, curled into a rather painful looking ball, a single stormy eye as cold as a winter's dark night piercing him with an unreadable look, his lips curled into a smirk that was more like a grimace.

"Do whatever the hell you want, Potter."

On any other day, Harry would walk away, perhaps slap Malfoy again even, but today that's not what he wanted. Today he had to fight against what he wanted because what he desired wasn't fabricated by the curse, and it was insane. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to mend whatever tentative, coldly friendly thing that had grown between them, and he wanted Malfoy to feel better.

Even if he was quite sure he still hated him.

With another a mutter of spell, Harry cast a Lightening Charm on Malfoy's prone form and gingerly, flushing heatedly all the while, lifted the Slytherin in his arms and stood for a few moments shifting Malfoy's nearly feather-light body in his grip. As expected, Malfoy was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head through his frosted eyes.

"What in Salazar's name are you doing Potter?"

"Whatever the hell I want." Harry replied roughly, stepping quickly toward the doors, back of his neck prickling as if expecting Snape to swoop down and attack him at any moment. But he didn't, and Zabini, the coward, had even fallen silent at last, likely struck dumb from the absurdity of Harry Potter carrying Draco Malfoy.

And he was carrying the _proper_ way at that. Some would call it tender, lovingly, but Harry simply saw it as the most appropriate, cradling Malfoy's body close to his chest, a firm, but lose grip on him, trying not to jostle the injured Slytherin. If he said it was the curse that made his blood burn and race southward when Malfoy's lolling head pressed to his neck, wet warmth brushing just at his pulse point, it would be a lie.

Harry was lucky enough not to run into a single wayward student in the moonlit corridors, obviously it was later than he had thought, although the time in detention seemed to have taken mere minutes, moments of misplaced anger and split seconds of ill-chosen words. Malfoy wasn't responding to any of his questions by the time he edged into the hospital wing, finding it empty but for a single lump of person tangled in sheets occupying a bed. He laid Malfoy down on a bed, his breath catching at the way the Slytherin's features shone in the pale light pouring in from the October moon.

The image haunted him as he dully reminded himself to find Madam Pomfrey, who was sipping tea and reading a romance novel when Harry peeked into her office. She instantly frowned when she caught sight of him, looking put out when she marked her place and pushed past him into the silent hospital wing.

"Well, what is it this time, Potter?" she grumbled, "What have you and your accident-prone lot done this time?"

"It's not me, or Ron, or Hermione this time. It's—"

Harry had began to explain, but was cut off when Madam Pomfrey let out a sort of squeak, her eyes wide and gaping at Malfoy. Harry foolishly thought for a moment that she, too, had noticed how he radiant he was in the moonlight, but then his stomach sank to his feet, his heart furiously pumping when he realized it was not a good thing at all for a medi-witch to freeze and shock when she saw a patient.

She bustled over, dropping her wand twice in the process before waving it swiftly over Malfoy's body, not waiting for the results of the spells quietly undulating through the air like multi-colored nets casting green and blue glows over Malfoy's wan face as if he was underwater. She was already at the other side of the hospital wing when Harry watched them fade, listening to her shrill whispers and an odd buzzing in his ears as he stood helplessly while she rifled through a potion's cabinet.

"It could be permanent! I've insisted, but no one listens! Severus has been lucky, but he's older, stronger! Mr. Malfoy, he's just a _boy_ that can't take that amount of pain, prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse is certainly not healthy for at all healthy for just a _boy_!"

The buzzing stopped and Harry's churning, guilty mind froze on the words 'Cruciatus Curse'. What did Pomfrey think? Did it appear that Harry had hit him with an Unforgivable? Was whatever damage he'd done that severe?

"It was just a _Stupefy_!" He exclaimed, largely to himself and the curse that was wriggling and writhing in want for Harry's punishment, but his outburst silenced the clinking of potion phials behind him.

He turned to see Pomfrey staring at him as if he hadn't been there before, her brows knitted together, standing up slowly and muttering to herself, rather like Hermione after another failed meeting of the three of them in Malfoy's corner of the library.

"Just a Stunner?" She inquired under her breath as she passed Harry, casting another rainbow of spells over Malfoy's still form and nodded to herself, a look of comprehension and relief dawning on her face. Harry felt the need to confess, the calm on her face was not enough to satisfy his own twitching worries. The Cruciatus Curse still echoed like the slice of a knife through his mind.

"I hexed him. We got in a row in detention and were fighting and I—I'm sorry."

Madam Pomfrey magicked pajamas onto Malfoy and placed the sheets over him, waving dismissively at Harry, who had a feeling she hadn't heard a word he'd said, too caught up in whatever thoughts Harry suddenly desperately wanted to hear.

"You may go Potter, he's fine."

She shuffled back to her office and Harry had a mad notion that she was going to go scribble something in a leather-bound notebook as she was still whispering to herself. He missed those evening spent in the library, tiredly countering Malfoy's snide remarks and trying to follow Hermione's sprawling trains of thoughts and theories on the curse. They were boring and infuriatingly useless but Harry somehow longed for the warm, stagnant air between the towering shelves, the familiar drone of Hermione's voice and the sharp, if not pleasant feel of Malfoy's stare on his skin.

Now the air was cold and sterile, the silence deafening, and Malfoy's eyes shut. Harry's hands stung from where his fingernails had dug into his skin, making it bleed as a belated punishment, but the curse seemed sated and Harry was glad. It was still very much alive however, binding him to the spot because it's what he wanted, his smarting hands itching to claim the rest of his desires that his terrified heart refused to let him have.

The curse was going too far, making him go too far and he was afraid. He knew what he wanted, what he should and should not want, what the world expected of him. He was afraid because what he wanted and what he was expected to want were two very, painfully different things.

In the end it was Madam Pomfrey that made his decision, poking her head out from her office and glaring at him.

"You may leave now, Mr. Potter."

"No," Harry responded instantly, springing from his spot and taking post at Malfoy's sleeping side, and hand darting out at its own accord to brush the pale fan of hair from the Slytherin's slightly sweating forehead.

"I want to stay."

He didn't see the way Pomfrey pursed her lips, stifling both a frown and a smile all at once.

~o0o~

Draco was alone, come morning.

He woke however with the distinct feeling that someone had been there, his left side feeling unusually empty and hairline tingling as though under the touch of another. That in itself was foolish, because he'd never been…_stroked_, not like that anyway. There were quick, animal fumblings in closets and nothing more, he'd never been held, or any such tender, touchy-feely nonsense.

He wasn't about to go whining that his mummy and daddy didn't love him enough however, he wasn't a Muggle-born after all.

Yet, a niggling in the back of his head told him that he _had_ been held, and stroked, and all that touchy-feely nonsense. It was like a memory had been blurred and darkened, seen through squinted pain-hazed eyes and dim senses…

That's when he remembered _Potter_ and the memory turned into something resembling the mortifying sort of nightmare you were thankful were only dreams, showing up naked to class or singing and all that tripe.

So unfortunately, what had happened to him was not a nightmare, it was reality in the form of a sharp Stunner to the ribs. The spot in question was still red and bruised, throbbing to the touch upon further inspection when he lifted his pajama shirt that Pomfrey, that pervert, had likely changed him into. He recalled what he'd said to Potter, it was hurtful, cutting, entirely true, and probably the nastiest thing he'd ever said to Potter.

He should be proud, satisfied, _amused _even, but he wasn't. He was impossibly guilty, a feeling he did not usually feel and did not at all like. It sat, a live, clawing thing in his stomach, churning and throwing tantrums with every thought of Potter's injured green, green eyes. Its talons dung their way more firmly into his gut when he remembered how he'd gotten to the hospital wing in the first place.

He'd bloody _carried_ him—and not like any bloke should either, he'd carried him like a breakable thing, something to be loved and protected—

Ways Draco didn't deserve to be treated.

So he lay, scowling and scolding the beast in his belly, weakly attempting to tame it without result. It was just as he was drifting to sleep again that Pomfrey came merrily up, thrusting a tray of soggy, overly sugared oatmeal into his lap with a cup of equally over sugared coffee.

She knew exactly how he liked his breakfast.

"Eat up dear, before you're late." She mothered, and Draco stiffly sat up, sleepily spooning at his breakfast. He idly wondered if he could feign pain to get out of class for that day, preferably to avoid Potter.

The creature scraped in protest and Draco also wondered if he could take a potion to kill it.

"You're perfectly fine," Pomfrey announced, as if reading his mind while she supervised his consumption of breakfast, "All that exposure to those Unforgivables at those awful gatherings makes one more susceptible to spells like Stunners and such."

Draco shuddered and took a deep swig of scolding coffee to ward of the chill threatening to settle in his bones. He'd been to two of those _gatherings_ since the term began and each time he'd put in the hospital wing after each one, weak, injured, and shaken to the core from the happenings of that awful, awful _gathering_. He hated Pomfrey's word for the Death Eater meetings, gathering should be used for fond, friendly things, family gatherings, a gathering of friends, not a _gathering_ of sociopaths and murderers in his own bloody home.

Past the horror, a more numb part of him wondered if the Dark Lord knew that cursing his minions five times an hour made them weak. Knowing him, he'd argue otherwise, and then curse Draco and then everything would go luridly colorful, vision like a knife to his eyes, feeling like excruciating—

"He's gone then?" Pomfrey murmured, mercifully bringing him back to reality.

She glanced around, but Draco didn't pay her any mind as he tucked into his meal and tried to draw some warmth from it. He was suddenly inexplicably cold aside from his forehead, his fringe.

A day later, it was cold in Hogsmeade too, a blistering wind ripping through the village and causing cloaks to flap like bird's wings in the streets. Draco bound his scarf more snuggly about his neck as he ditched Crabbe and Goyle, leaving them to drool over Honeyduke's latest confections.

He walked down a path that was vaguely familiar, his back to the persistent wind and glad that he was blissfully alone at long last. He'd made an art out of dodging Blaise's incessant, convoluted plans for revenge on Potter and Potter himself over the past day, sneakily disappearing into the lesser know regions of the castle and away from plots and green eyes in a flash, cleverly concocted excuses allowing him to vanish for hours into unused rooms with a good book, and, of course, it occasionally helped to have two walls of intimidating muscle flexing at his sides as well.

He was happy to be without Crabbe and Goyle now however, although the chilly air already seemed to crowd with his musings, thoughts he'd avoided facing in the presence of any other, confronted in the dark hours of the night when his dorm mates slept untroubled.

Draco wondered what they would think if they knew that he was thinking about Harry Potter at such hours. For some, terrible reason he had a notion that they wouldn't be surprised.

They—meaning Pansy and her great flapping mouth—had told him many a time before that he was obsessed with Potter, giving him exasperated looks when the repetitive rants about the Boy Who Lived To Drive Draco Mad got old. Only now had they, Pansy and maybe Blaise, started to worry about his supposed obsession with Potter. Draco knew he was quiet now, he knew he had dark circles under his eyes, and his face was sickly wan and drawn, and he alone knew what horrors he stared down in the night when sleep, always a deceivingly peaceful thing, turned against him and supplied him with a blood-freezing terror, sharp, lurid images that left his throat hoarse and skin cold with sweat.

Then all there was left was Potter.

Potter making him grin mischievously when he thought of the curse, Potter returning the haughty spring to his step, Potter digging ruthlessly further into Draco's mind and planting himself firmly there, making everything a little less bleak and a little more…green.

Draco realized that the path was inclining and he found himself trudging up the hill to the Shrieking Shack and he scowled to himself, rubbing the back of his head with a gloved hand. This was the place he'd been splattered with mud, attacked by the force that was the Potter the Floating Head. It hadn't taken Granger to figure out that Potter obviously owned an Invisibility Cloak, just as it was obvious that it was likely a privilege only Dumbledore's favorite could indulge in.

He propped himself against a tree, gazing absently at the ruined building that was the most haunted in all of Britain, only the wind disturbing the ivy draped all about the overgrown garden, not a single ghost interrupting his peace.

Except for Potter, who naturally had to haunt his every waking moment.

He came shuffling up the hill, looking everywhere but Draco as he deliberately refused to notice him. Draco watched with a veiled curiosity from the corner of his eye, ignoring the beast somersaulting in his stomach at the sight of Potter and the eyes he'd hurt and the arms that had held him.

"Potter," he snapped when he'd wandered in a circle half a dozen times, jaw working in suppressed speech, "I believe it's become obvious enough that we both know we're here."

Potter had the decency to drop the act immediately, sighing and shoving his hands deeper in his pockets as he sidled to a tree near where Draco sat.

"So, you're…alright then?" Potter asked more to the wind than Draco.

"Despite my looks, I'm not as breakable as you would think."

Potter went quiet again and Draco had no idea why he had said that. Surely he wasn't complaining to Potter, complaining about something Draco _never_ wanted the sodding Chosen One to know at that?

"Yeah, well, I was kinda worried." Potter said gruffly, then amended, "You know, because my…magic can get a little too powerful at…times."

"Right then, duly noted."

"I'm sorry,"

"Really, are you?"

"Yes, I mean, I didn't mean—"

"Why are you sorry?"

"Why am I—what are you on about? I hexed you." Potter exclaimed, dark brows furrowed together and green eyes flashing. Green eyes that made the thing in his stomach wriggle uncomfortably.

"And you've done that many a time before, haven't you?" Draco said, the blood suddenly rushing in his ears and he stood down Potter, less than a foot away as he glared.

"Yes, I have," Potter hissed through clenched teeth, appearing as angry and confused as Draco at the moment and, likely, just as regretful.

Draco knew he just as likely didn't deserve Potter's guilt.

"Then don't apologize, Potter, for something you're not sorry for."

There, that was what made his blood fizzle like a simmering potion. Potter being his suffering little martyr self when he didn't deserve to—he was a hero for Merlin's sake! Shouldn't that count for something? Shouldn't he be…different?

But he wasn't, he was Potter, who made Draco different, who in all rights should treat Draco like the scum he often felt like, but didn't, Potter who deserved so much more.

Potter who made him happy.

"Fine," Potter whispered to the ground, then faced Draco's gaze with his usual Gryffindor defiance, defiance that almost made him smile, "Fine, I won't."

"Good," Draco nodded, stifling the smile by puffing hot breath into his cupped hands.

Potter froze and shuddered slightly, but Draco didn't take much notice, he felt dizzied when he met Potter's eyes again, it was as if the creature of guilt in his gut was clawing its way out, climbing up his throat to burst out—

"I'm sorry, Potter, for what happened, what I said." He muttered in a rush, still speaking into his hands and gazing at the gloves incredulously.

Potter looked at him as if Draco had slapped him rather than apologized, gobsmacked and wide eyed, but Draco didn't care, he felt better now, incredibly mortified and awkward, but better. Almost happy.

"Um, well, you're forgiven then I guess." Potter fumbled, eyes still uncertain and darting, but seemed to believe Draco either way.

"Good,"

This time Draco took notice as Potter shook, his spine turning to liquid, visage flushing, bottom lip caught between his teeth. The sight made him feel curiously hot in the chill of the day.

"You really like it when I praise you, don't you?" Draco asked, his answer in Potter's glare and shuffling feet and he turned away.

"Well it's not me, it's the bloody curse." He mumbled.

"So then, if I say something like 'bad boy' you'll feel hurt?"

"Well not when you say it like that, and I dunno." Potter looked at him thoughtfully before going red again, "I'd rather not find out from a kinky Slytherin either, so don't"

Draco grinned like a Cheshire cat, "Kinky, am I Potter? What makes you say that?"

"I've heard my share of rumors about you and Zabini."

"Oh, please," he scoffed, "Pansy's ridiculous embellishments, that's all. Blaise is too demanding for my tastes besides."

Potter rolled his eyes, meandering about the trees and Draco watched, a question on his tongue that he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to, wasn't sure if it was his place to ask.

Where was his place anyway? Before he'd have proudly proclaimed it was above Potter, a privilege granted to him by a mistake and a curse, but today he felt oddly on the same ground, a shifting, turbulent ground that he shared with Potter, merely trying to survive and find a stable bit of land to stand on.

"Is it true then?" he inquired, surprised at how grave his voice was and equally so at how Potter seemed to know exactly what he was asking about.

He disappeared behind a tree, just beside Draco; indeed he could even see cloud of breath wafting from behind the thick, mossy trunk. Those clouds were his only answer for what seemed like the slow passing of an eternity, those and the growling of some new creature, something softly fierce that resided in his chest, smoldering like a new born phoenix.

"I can't lie to you," Potter's whisper scarcely carried over the wind, but Draco heard him as clearly as if he had shouted.

"I'm sure you could if you wanted," Draco reasoned, not quite sure why he was, "if you were clever enough."

Potter swung around from behind the tree, a mysterious smirk on his face, something rather like a grimace and almost a grin, "The strange thing is, I don't want to."

The thing in Draco's chest beat its wings madly, sending heat to his face and warding off the suspicion he should have felt. Potter was watching him carefully, but Draco swiftly donned his indifferent façade and said without thinking,

"Good,"

Potter's knees visibly buckled this time and Draco smirked, a few choice words he'd never use springing to his mind, imagining himself making Potter come undone just with his _words._

But of course that would never happen. There were too many reasons why that would never happen.

"So then, you really like that?" he smirked, "I'd say _you_ were the kinky one Potter."

"Shove off, Malfoy," Potter snarled without malice, the effect taken away by the red in his cheeks.

"It just makes me wonder about the real power behind this curse," Draco murmured, not at all thinking about the new power he held over what happened in Potter's pants.

"How do you mean?"

"Potter," he paused, a real theory that had nothing to do with Potter's equally cursed libido forming in his head, "Waltz for me."

"What?" Potter squeaked, but the curse was already at work, Potter's feet stumbling from underneath him and dragging his unwilling upper half along with them. Within moments, after he stopped resisting and stared about in disbelief, he was waltzing about with an invisible partner, graceful and gliding.

"I-I'm pants at dancing." Potter stammered.

"I'm well aware of that fact; you were positively pathetic at the Yule Ball." Draco replied dryly, "But it appears that the cure is not."

"You mean that it's because of the curse I can dance like this?"

"A finding I'm sure Granger will have a fit over. I started to assume that her bloody 'enchantment gone wrong' can transcend your own abilities in favor of pleasing me, your master, when you started talking as if you had had a dose of Veritaserum." He explained.

"I hate that stuff. Make me stop dancing, will you?"

"No I don't think I will, it's too fascinating to see you not bumbling about," Draco relented when Potter swung his arm threateningly near his face as he spun away, "Didn't Umbridge give you Veritaserum when you were doing that Defense tripe in fifth year?"

"I hate that toad."

"Me too,"

"Really?" Potter looked skeptical as he took Draco's former seat at the base of the tree, "You were on her Inquisitorial Squad, weren't you?"

"She was awful though, completely mad." Draco murmured, turning away. He thought about walking away just then, but for whatever reason he stayed and answered Potter again.

"How do you mean?"

"She was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on you," he said softly, "That's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."

Then Draco, despite good sense, did not leave, instead he sat on the other side of the tree that didn't seem so wide anymore, just like how the wind didn't seem so cold anymore.

They didn't speak, they didn't even look at each other, simply lapsing into something wary, unstable and coldly friendly, something that could be warmed by the slightest glances or the exchanging of smiles they couldn't see or weren't even sure existed.

Something like an acquiescence.

~o0o~

** A/N~ I'm in search for a beta or two, so if anyone is interested please PM me. I could really use the help because…well, if you read with a critical eye, its quite obvious and I'd like to stop disappointing both myself and dedicated readers.**

** Thanks for reading, please review!**


	6. Raveled

Raveled

"Harry isn't liking the Wigtown Wanderers."

"Rightly so, the meat cleaver theme is absolutely stupid."

"Master is be liking which team the greatest?"

"The Falmouth Falcons, they're the most fun to watch."

"Harry isn't liking the way they is to play."

"Well if you can't handle a little blood Potter then—"

"Stop it!"

Harry and Malfoy stared at Hermione incredulously, both near starting out of their seats at her outburst, her very loud outburst in the library no less. Usually she enforced the silence with pointed looks and harsh shushing, but suddenly her voice rang throughout the shelves and shattered the peace she normally fought to keep.

"I can't stand you mocking house elves! How _dare_ you?" she shrieked, slamming her book with another echoing thump that made them flinch.

"C'mon, 'Mione, we were just having a bit of fun is all." Harry soothed, but was immediately pinned with an unforgiving, piercing glare.

"Don't you 'Mione me Harry James Potter! I would think that from your _situation _you'd come to better appreciate house elves and not make fun of things they can't control."

"They can control it, actually. I had a house elf when I was little that read to me with proper grammar." Malfoy drawled, "Really Granger, you need to get it through your bushy head that house elves have a choice in most things."

She sent him a look that could freeze flame, a look that Malfoy didn't even blink at and Harry was tempted to laugh, but laughing at that moment would likely result in an untimely death beneath the formidable power that was the fearsome Hermione Granger.

It was a clear Saturday afternoon that they were absolutely wasting inside the repressive, stagnant air while a crisp, autumn-scented breeze gusted gently out the window. So far the only success they'd had while cramming their heads full with scrapped theories and arcane texts they couldn't _decipher_ never mind _read_ was make Hermione both suspicious and furious. Suspicious because he and Malfoy were being civil, civil in the way that rather than tearing at each other's throats and sending venomous glares back and forth, they were joking around and chatting amicably about Quidditch, something even the ever All-Knowing Hermione couldn't predict ever happening while Harry was still in his right mind. Perhaps she was also harbored dubious thoughts about his sanity, his brain addled by a curse none of them fully understood.

After all, Harry had used the excuse plenty enough times himself.

She was furious because of they both were interrupting her concentration with their strange friendliness and alleged 'mocking of house elves'. She was generally in a constant fume these days, whether it be from frustration about her lack of ability to solve the curse and find its counter-enchantment or from, as always, Ron being a thick git.

A week ago Harry would have understood why Ron loathed the very thought of willingly spending time with Draco Malfoy, but a week ago Harry was the Boy Who Lived to Snog Horklumps, today he was just Harry and, after a week of mutual detentions, Quidditch talk, and an accidental transfer of secrets, Malfoy was getting to be more like…Draco.

Ever since that afternoon in Hogsmeade near the Shrieking Shack that coldly friendly thing had remained between them, indeed it seemed to shadow over the curse, suppressing it almost. But in reality it had the opposite effect, it was strengthening it; Harry complied to commands without a second thought, he found tiny marks of punishment on his arms in the form of scratches from quills or his own nails, and more often than not he went to bed with tented pajamas and the latest sardonic praise from his master singing through the curse like a song.

This was thoroughly awkward coupled with the fact that the school was whispering, and in some individual cases, shouting rumors about the newly publicly gay Golden Boy going about with the Kinky Prince of Slytherin.

He was dangerously close to murdering Seamus Finnegan the morning he and his painfully loud Irish voice demanded to know if he and Malfoy were shagging while they stood in the Great Hall exchanging Charms notes.

Malfoy's words had more effect on him than his fellow Gryffindor's however, his face flushing as the curse lilted hotly through his veins at the cadence of Malfoy's smirking, drawling, inexplicably beautiful voice.

"Are we then, Potter? Shall we make good use of Severus' desk during detention tonight? You should tell Finnegan that what happens in the Potions classroom stays there. Something to that effect, yeah?"

Harry sputtered eloquently at Malfoy's retreating blond head, trying to set his mind to rights and _not_ envision himself sprawled on Snape's desk in the cold, drafty dungeons completely naked, staring into lust-hazed grey eyes, hands threading into mussed white-blond hair and tasting every inch of—

He calmed down only when he realized that Malfoy had nicked his Charms homework.

By 'something to that effect', Harry had told Seamus to mind his own bloody business unless he wanted to wake up to the Giant Squid snogging him.

Harry was pulled from his thoughts by Hermione thumping him firmly on the head with her little leather-bound book, skewing his glasses and sending him tilting frightfully backward in his chair. Malfoy naturally laughed, and Harry could tell that he was likely the next victim of Hermione's curiously heavy notebook if he didn't stop.

"I wonder if I can order you to have some sense of balance, Potter." he chuckled, dodging Hermione's blow as she lunged. He sprung nimbly from his own chair and twisted his lithe body behind it, and Harry had to admit that he had the proper build of a proper Seeker.

"Oh, why don't you two go and do what you so obviously really want to? Leave me be and go play your damn Quidditch." She harrumphed as if reading Harry's mind.

Harry glanced uncertainly to Malfoy, he didn't want either of them getting the idea that he didn't want to help to break the curse that was entangled within him, even if it meant sacrificing perfect Quidditch conditions in favor for lazing in the library pretending to do something important.

"Oh, come on, Potter!" Malfoy whined at his look, then stood ramrod straight and announced formally, "Fine then, I, Draco Malfoy, Master of Harry Potter, and Best Seeker in Hogwarts do hereby command Harry Potter to join me outside on this glorious day for a fly. Specific enough for you, you sodding martyr?"

Harry nodded dumbly and took Malfoy's offered hand, shrugging at Hermione, who was ignoring them huffily, flipping furiously through her notes. They exited the library, leaving a flock of slack-jawed and affronted Ravenclaws in their wake, those who chose to fritter away one of the last lovely days of the year in the library, a place that would not be ravaged by a Scottish winter in a matter of weeks.

"How can you not be afraid of her?" Harry shook his head at Malfoy's equally insulted look.

"Granger? Honestly Potter, it takes more than a brown-eyed menace bashing a book about to scare me."

Harry simply raised an eyebrow, an expression that he was sure belonged on Malfoy's face rather than his own. He couldn't decide whether or not it was worrying that his mannerisms were rubbing off on him.

It was worrying, however, the images the simple word 'rubbing' conjured.

"Besides, she doesn't know my middle name, now does she?" he called down the corridor as they parted ways to fetch their brooms.

~o0o~

Draco was actually glad that Granger didn't know his middle name, because, admittedly, she could indeed be quite scary when she wanted to be.

Although he was more frightened about what Potter was doing to him.

It amazed Draco how easily Potter could smile when he wasn't scowling and brooding, though he had every reason to what with a mad man after him, along with some morbid, misty prophecy hanging over his head like a dark cloud, _and_ it wasn't as if Draco was working to make his life any easier.

For that, he was a tad bit guilty, but wild Thestrals couldn't drag that admission from him. He would admit, however, that he was as furious as a house-elf-loving-Hermione-Granger at that manipulative old codger for using him, Severus, and even his favorite little Potter for his own grand schemes on a chess board none of them could see. Who knew when one of them, nothing more than a simple pawn, might be sacrificed for 'the greater good' of this mad battle of politics called a war? Draco saw no soldiers or battlefronts, no, it was all skulking and spying and suffering through the Cruciatus Curse for the damnable 'greater good'.

Dumbledore may be his ticket to freedom from the curse as binding as Potter's own that scarred itself across his forearm, but he still hated the Muggle-loving Headmaster with his bloody soulless twinkling and poisonously sweet lemon drops.

It was also frightening that he was not only feeling guilty and liking Harry bloody Potter, both of which went against everything that was Malfoy, what's more he was _scared_ for him, all the while Draco could be killed at any one of those _gatherings_, slowly and torturously punished for his treason, his parents murdered, maybe even Severus discovered, and then the 'greater good' would be bloody lost all together.

So it obviously didn't make sense why he was biting his nails for a boy, who was safe and sound at Hogwarts, nothing more than the prospect of his future and the recollections of the past to truly harm him within the walls of the castle.

That, and Draco.

Guilt seems to be an infectious thing that insists on lingering, something that requires a cure in the form of a promise, a promise Draco wasn't sure he could take nor keep. He'd hurt Potter, and he didn't want it to happen again.

Now that was a frightening idea.

But everything that was scary, dark, and complicated dispersed as soon as he laid hands on the polished wood of his broom. The sky was an inexplicably safe place, high above all the problems waiting for him on the ground, it was a place that could not hold heavy thoughts and weighted feelings, it simply soared.

Sometimes Draco wished he never had to land again.

Sauntering down to the pitch with his broom shouldered and wind playing in his hair, things started to look like they used to, the sky was still the same brilliant blue as it had been last year, the lake was still glossy-surfaced and glimmering, and firsties still scampered away when they saw him. It was almost as if the summer had never happened.

Until he saw Potter.

Then things, including the summer months and mark on his arm, became very real again, but it wasn't as if he was alone and terrified on the drawing room floor, he had a broom in hand and a Saviour at his side.

He knew this should be wrong and terrifying, relying on another for his happiness, but he wasn't. He was as he was flying when he looked into Potter's eyes.

Free.

He groaned, feeling like one of the little Hufflepuffs he'd just ousted from the pitch for standing there and thinking so bloody _romantically_ about stupid Harry Potter and his stupid green, green eyes.

Those eyes were looking at him along with a cluster of Ravenclaws cowed at the other end of the pitch, but he paid them, and even Potter's gaze no mind, impulsively mounting his broom and rocketing skyward, worries and thoughts ripped away by the wind snatching at his clothes, the world's details blurred with speed, his lungs expanding with the crisp October air and eyes filling with the clear, cloudless expanse of forget-me-not blue.

He was above it all, sneering at those gawking Ravenclaws, the students congregated about the lake, but not Potter, Potter was circling him like a hungry shark, cutting through the air on his damned Firebolt that Draco wanted so much.

But Draco couldn't allow Potter to make him any more of a liar than he already was, he had proclaimed himself the best Seeker of the school after all, so fast racing broom or not, Potter was going down.

Without another second's hesitation, they dove, the ground rearing up at them at an incredible speed an unspoken dare pushing them and their dangerous game of chicken.

They went on like that for what could have been hours, a score never set and challenge never met, diving and swooping and spinning and never quite meeting the other's eye. The spectators grew bored and left, the group at the lake thinned until it was only the two of them flitting in the twilight like summer fireflies.

Draco wasn't sure what caused it then, maybe the flash of the sunset off of Potter's glasses, or perhaps the glimmer of light off the lake, but something blinded him for a moment, white-hot light flashing across his vision, his hands flying up instinctively to shield his eyes and with his grip gone, he fell.

He felt the awful sensation of helplessly falling before a different awful sensation jerked through his shoulder, but that pain was welcome because he quickly realized was his arm popping out of place because Potter had caught him.

Potter who had been on the other end of the pitch.

Potter who was not on his broom, but rather on Draco's now.

Potter who was staring down at him, face reflecting the pure astonishment Draco was sure was on his own.

Potter who had _Apparated._

Draco hung limply as Potter hauled him awkwardly onto his broom, an arm snaked around him tentatively, the look of surprise never leaving and only growing when Draco took a firm hold of him, his frame shaking and eyes fixed on the ground, which was far, far beneath them.

He could have been a pile of broken bones and bloodied flesh down there if not for Potter and the house elf skill of Apparating on school grounds evidently.

"You Apparated." He whispered, the words making the action somehow real and not the desperate dream of a person actually falling to their death. He tried in vain to detach his fingers from their inappropriately needy grasp on Potter's arms, reasoning with himself that this was reality, though the dizzied look on Potter's face, which was so very close, did nothing to convince him that it really was.

"I did?" Potter was whispering too, breath huffing in the hair at the back of Draco's neck.

"What else could it have been? You—"

Draco took a shaky breath, halting the words 'saved me'. He didn't want to be in Potter's debt after all, although after the incident in detention, wasn't he already? Or was Potter in his debt? He wondered when he stopped keeping score, something he'd once kept meticulously, brooding and frankly obsessing over. Perhaps Pansy and Blaise were right; after all, here he was breathless and blushing like a girl in Harry Potter's arms, high in the sky above the Quidditch pitch with a _romantic _view of the sunset over the mountains.

A vantage point that any student who happened to look out a window would easily see, the silhouette of two people entwined on a broomclear against the purpling sky.

"Potter. Land. Now." Draco was appalled at how quivering his voice was, but satisfied that Potter obeyed without question, easing toward the ground below, a hand once hesitant wound securely about his waist.

When they did touchdown, Potter did not let go as Draco expected, making a distantly familiar motion in sweeping him up into his arms and holding him close. And it was then he felt protected and precious and all that loving, Muggle-made nonsense, which it clearly was, nothing but nonsense.

Even if it felt good.

"Potter?"

There, it was gone, fleeting as a Snitch, the something that was more than coldly friendly, something warmer and more than friendly. It was something that lived in a moment he wasn't sure he could have back, even if he ordered it.

He was on his own two feet, only a concerned hand steadying him lingering on his shoulder, Potter's eyes downcast and a long silence spanning between them. This was a new moment, and although set at an awkward angle, there were more pressing matters to attend to.

"Apparate Potter."

Potter blinked, but did not so shift so much as an inch, making Draco scowl.

"What?" Potter looked highly offended under his frowning scrutiny, "You don't honestly expect me to do it again, do you?"

"Yes, I honestly do. Now be a good house elf and Apparate for your master." He replied crisply.

Potter shoved away, a shudder rippling through him even as a scowl of his own replaced the careless abandon of flight from his features.

"I told you I can't, now stop. The curse…hurts."

Draco was ready to argue that it wasn't hurting at all, but refrained, Potter was in an odd mood as it was and he was already longing for the simple joy of flying.

"It was probably the curse itself that made it happen in the first place, wasn't it? Why shouldn't it allow you to Apparate now if I ask?"

"It was a life or death situation, so it was like accidental magic, that's likely why." Potter insisted, "It happens sometimes."

"Rarely," Draco scoffed, but raised a brow at the look on Potter's face, "Doesn't it?"

Potter tugged at a forelock and peered around the darkening pitch almost sheepishly. "I've told you before; my magic can get a bit…unruly."

Draco was tempted to make the connection between Potter's untamable hair and his equally _unruly_ magic, but held his tongue again, trying to think as Granger, who surely would be having a conniption by now, would. Doing so was embarrassingly easy, Draco supposed it was a skill copied from Pomfrey rather than Granger, being calculatingly mothering as she always was when Draco dragged himself back to the hospital wing.

"Accidental magic has happened to you after having come to Hogwarts? Recently?"

"Well there was just now and…" Potter trailed away, biting his lips in an infuriatingly attractive way, "A few times before."

"Before or after the curse?"

"After wh—" Potter broke off, a stupidly enlightened grin brightening his face, "We should tell Hermione!"

"Granger will probably beat me with that book of hers for daring to make so much headway on a curse of her own design." He sighed, tossing his head back and trying to look terribly abused, which, naturally, only made Potter laugh harder.

"Malfoy, I know you'll be the one to solve this yet!"

Draco's smirk crumpled even as Potter slung a brotherly arm about him and continued to beam brilliantly.

Would Draco be the one to free Potter? Did he even want to? If he did, what would become of this coldly friendly and surely fragile thing?

"Well, Potter," he sighed, looking up to the place they'd hovered, the place Potter had saved him, "I hope you're ready to spend the rest of the weekend in the library suffering my company along with a Granger that will no doubt be beside herself in inspiration once we tell her my latest theory."

Potter didn't complain even once.

~o0o~

The sky outside was seething in a mass of dark grey, rain falling in earnest, splattering sharply against the windows and turning the grounds to muddy slush.

Naturally, the first Quidditch game of the year was today, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and the Great Hall was churning as much as the Lake under the tangible anxious tension flashing like thunderclaps in the form of biting insults and burning glares between the two teams.

It was the two Seekers everyone was watching however, the pair that did not speak to each other, but every stolen glance across the room was just as electric. Harry really hated it when everyone was watching, it made it all the more worse that this was _before _the game that they were so attentive to his every move, but he supposed that it was something he'd always have to deal with.

But he didn't want them witnessing his own supposedly secret stares thrown Draco's way, stares that, strangely, were not returned.

Over the last few days, the glances Harry didn't even know he'd been casting were returned, grey twining through him as tightly as the curse, but today they were avoided and ignored, Draco was bent over his breakfast with a decided tautness to his slim shoulders.

Yes, he had indeed become not Malfoy but Draco, after what was the almost accident at the Quidditch pitch the smirking, sneering ice sculpture that was Malfoy had melted to become more human, a simple boy that like everyone else trembled when they nearly fell to their death and, perhaps unconsciously, sought comfort, he'd become just Draco.

And yet he wasn't _just_ Draco, he was so much more than that; he was quick wit and aristocratic fingers, natural grace and gossamer hair, the smell of mint and eyes like the December sky. He was becoming much more than a schoolyard nemesis, or his master, or even a sort of friend that may actually hate you, and this was probably why Harry was foolishly worried.

Draco was also worried about something, he could tell, it was in the bruise-like marks of insomnia beneath his eyes and slump to his gait, the way he got as frosty and still as an icicle when the subject of Quidditch was brought up, his words sharp and cold. It was also in the way the git was refusing to meet his eye as he so often did, the ritual of the glance, gaze met, smirk and quirk of the eyebrow gone.

Harry, as he so often did many things, could be merely over thinking it. It was Quidditch, who wouldn't be nervous? First game jitters were creeping through the entire school, especially the Seekers. Although Harry had been too preoccupied with the fact that his new friend of cold, imbalanced sorts to really notice the clenching of his stomach and sweat of his palms, the classic symptoms of pre-game nerves, that or thoughts of Draco Malfoy.

Before he had time to gather the courage needed to walk across the hall to the Slytherin table and ask what was on Draco's mind, he was dragged away by Ginny, who was raving about something Angelina had planned, but it was all just a distant murmur his ears, like thunder on the horizon.

It continued to be a distant murmur even when they entered the pitch were masses of students were already cheering over the pound of the rain, he didn't pay much attention to the chatter of the locker room until he heard the word 'Malfoy'.

It was only then that his attention was impossibly piqued.

"What did you say?" he demanded of Ginny, who merely blinked at him, but then frowned.

"Oh, yeah well, Malfoy's mummy is here watching the game. I'm surprised that Dumbledore would allow a Death Eater's wife on school grounds, just like how it amazes me that Malfoy is still in school, wouldn't you think that he'd drop out to become what he's always wanted to be?"

Harry vaguely recalled making the same argument on the train on the way to Hogwarts this year, but still felt the need to defend Draco, whether it was from the curse or the coldly friendly thing, he did not know.

Ginny would probably have a fit if she ever heard him calling Malfoy, his supposed archenemy, Draco.

He sidled away from Ginny and toward the locker room door, wondering if he could slip out and find Draco in the last few minutes before the game, but his thoughts were cut short when he was snatched around the collar by a forceful hand and yanked out the door, knocking his glasses off.

He didn't have to see properly to know who was holding him, however, the figure was all pale and green and smelled intoxicatingly like mint and leather and rain. Harry blinked owlishly when his glasses were slipped back onto his nose gingerly by skillful fingers and was met with a spectacularly close half-hearted smirk.

"You know I forget you actually need them sometimes, I occasionally assume you simple wear them to annoy me. Honestly with your money you could afford something better than there rounded atrocities."

Harry laughed softly and tugged self consciously at his fringe, inexplicably feeling no need to move away or ask what Draco wanted, indeed his thoughts of confronting him had all fled his mind, content to continue to be pressed into a wall by a willowy form and the pleasant sight of such a form slicked with rain, his white-blonde hair plastered down and darkened to spun-gold.

But Draco seemed to want to say something, the curse was wriggling in a way that knew he _needed_ something and Harry was all the willing to give him whatever that may be. He tried smiling encouragingly and, surprisingly, it worked. Malfoy met his gaze almost shyly; bottom lip between his teeth in a way that Harry was sure didn't look near as _edible_ on himself. It was probably the hazed look to Harry's eyes now that made Draco plough on, as if afraid to loss Harry's attention.

"Potter, I need a favor," he hesitated, voice so low it was almost inaudible, "A favor doesn't mean it's an order, you have a choice."

Harry nodded slowly, the curse wilting as if in disappointment it didn't have to strangle Harry into something he was unwilling to do. That was worrying, but not that matter to be addressed at the moment.

"I want you to let me win the game."

Harry was convinced now that this was something he'd been mustering up the courage—and humility—to say for ages. It was all in a rush, like an explanation from a guilty child, and Harry was almost expecting him to scuff his foot on the ground from the way he met his gaze insolently and pleading all at once.

Then there was the question itself—throw a game so Draco could win for once? Cheat? Why would he do that? Why would Draco dare ask him when he knows Harry would never do such a—

Oh.

Things were falling into place, his silence, his worry, his sleeplessness, and his mother. He wanted to win just one Quidditch game for his mother, who was the equivalent of a grieving widow, now persecuted by the public for her husband's crimes just as Draco was. Harry didn't think it was fair, in fact it set his blood a boil, it wasn't their fault that Lucius went and decided to follow an undead mad man, just as it wasn't Harry's fault that his father was a prat in school.

A niggling in the back of his head told him he was being naïve, what if Draco and Narcissa had a choice in that path as well? What if they were as good as Death Eaters, carrying out the Dark Lord's dark deeds with no one the wiser, only the father Malfoy wearing the mask and bearing the Mark?

Could he really say that now? With those grey eyes gazing at him in a shame hidden false haughtiness? Could he really let his team down all for Draco?

"Yes," he answered himself more than the Slytherin still holding him to the wall, who went suddenly stiff, eyes narrowed and searching for a lie. Mistrustful as always.

"Draco, you deserve to win for once," he said earnestly, arms coming up to grip his biceps, "I'm only doing this once, and you have to really try, I'm not making this easy."

He relaxed only then, a near smirk turning up his lips and Harry was sure they were poised to say something scathing about Gryffindor pride. A lot could be said about Slytherin pride, but Harry simply smiled for now, even if he wasn't sure why.

"I suppose I owe you now?" Draco said dryly, still making no move to let him go and Harry found he was just fine with that.

"A brave thing for a Slytherin to say," Harry grinned wisely, earning a cuff to the side of his head, "I'm sure I'll think of some way for you to repay me, maybe house elf for a day?"

Draco shuddered, "What are you going to do, Potter? Make me wear nothing but rags and tea towels? I've told you you're the kinky one, not me."

Harry knew he was about to have a lot of thoughts about Draco in nothing but a tea towel, but those lovely thoughts were quashed by the calling of his name and the abruptly deafening roar of the crowd. It was as if the world was sonly just now invading the bubble he and Draco had formed in the shadows of the Quidditch locker rooms.

"Thank you, Potter."

It was nearly like a kiss; the way Draco's lips pressed to his ear and lingered for what could have been the longest three seconds of his life.

And then it was gone, the moment trailing away like the string of wayward balloon, and he was alone in the shadows, soon to be discovered by a furious Ginny, but he only dimly made out her words and just as foggily lied about what he'd been doing.

The icy persistence of the rain helped him to sharpen his thoughts, but still they only drifted to Draco and the possibilities of him falling again in the dreadful weather, or being struck by lightning, or being blind-sided by a Bludger—

He was slow to the take off, kicking up mud and rising to hover above the other players, who certainly weren't distracted playing in deplorable weather like this.

They also weren't distracted by the way Draco looked his Quidditch robes, breeches laced tight and gloves of soft leather encasing his slender arms, both begging to be ripped off…

A flash of gold snapped him from his thoughts, but it was just the necklace of a Ravenclaw girl in the stands, and he made himself focus. He'd promised to not make this easy for Draco and he definately wasn't keeping that promise by daydreaming.

Although so near the stands, he wondered where Draco's mother was, watching as she sat primly, and secretly hoped, an enthusiasm a proper pure-blood lady would never show outwardly.

But he knew she would be watching now, because Harry saw the Snitch and so did Draco, it was flitting in the center of the pitch, darting about an oblivious Chaser for the Slytherin team.

Their gazes met, even through the darkness and rain, Draco's eyes were unmistakably determined, just as the battering storm that prowled above them. A challenge was met and a promise kept as they dived, rain and wind trying uselessly to drag them back as they neared the Golden Snitch.

An arm's length, an inch, it was almost in his grasp, just as it was almost in Draco's clawing hand. It would be easy to snatch it now, fair to, but he didn't. He swerved and watched as Draco's pale hand closed around the Snitch and a look of pure shock dawned on his face, as if he expected to be denied last second.

Harry should have been insulted, but he didn't have much time to react as he was suddenly thrown back by an excited Seeker, broom and all, which proved to be quite a force as he was tossed to the ground and crushed under Draco.

And then there was no _almost_ because this was a kiss, a real kiss that was pressed firmly and wetly to his mouth and all the breath he'd managed to retain through the short fall to the muddy ground was gone.

Before he had time to recover, or, dare he, _kiss back_, he was met with a smirk and sincere grey eyes, a face of grateful triumph splattered with rain and mud.

"I think I owe you a lot more than that."

Then he was gone, pulled up and embraced by his own team who were shouting themselves hoarse in victory. His own team was quiet when they gathered his near unresponsive body from the ground, mumbling their own complaints and about 'Malfoy tackling Harry just to shove it in his face'.

Harry didn't correct them, because something had indeed been shoved in his face and right onto his mouth. He was mildly surprised no one saw.

He was awakened from his daze by a figure hovering pale as a ghost in the rain nearby, her blue eyes trained on him as if she _had _seen, a controlled smile that was rather like a grimace on her beautiful face. He pushed away from the defeated Gryffindors, who did not ask where he was going, patting him on the back and nodding understandingly, thinking he was off to mope and brood on the game he'd purposely lost.

Muddied and soaked, he approached Narcissa Malfoy, who stood unmarred beneath an Umbrella Charm, the smile quickly fading as her pale blue eyes settle on him. Her face did not contort in disdain, but rather looked him over in an appraising sort of way, brushing her long golden hair in a gesture that could be attributed as nervous.

"Harry Potter," she said in a soft voice that contained a command not unlike that of her husband, "You flew well today,"

Harry was nearly sure that she knew that he'd lost on purpose, but said nothing and quietly thanked her, not dropping her gaze.

She suddenly glanced around and drew close, towering over him and filling his nose with the cloying scent of gardenias and the expensive silk of her dress, her eyes were searching his face in the silently desperate way Draco had just before the game. He was amazed at how much he looked like his mother, rather than his father upon further inspection. There was something softer about Narcissa Malfoy that her husband didn't have, but her son had inherited. Maybe it was the eyelashes.

"Harry Potter this an order from the lady of the House of Malfoy, whom ranks higher than the heir," she whispered, and the curse bound him to attention, plucking and knitting in a fury he'd never felt, like strings ready to snap, "You will do everything in your power to protect my son, understand?"

"Yes Madam," he replied automatically, the curse tying and binding like a promise wrapped tight.

She nodded once, drawing herself up and gliding away like a specter in the storm, off to likely congratulate her son who had won by cheating.

Her son that Harry had sworn to protect with his life.

~o0o~

**A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review! **


	7. Twined

Twined

He'd _flirted _with him.

Actually, Draco had done far, far more than that. He'd _kissed_ him and _then_ flirted with him.

Hours later Harry was still trying to make sense of the jumble of events that had positively bombarded his mind and, the last bit about the kiss anyway, body, leaving him incoherent, dazed, and confused. He tried to think about it objectively, thinking about where it'd happened, in front of the entire school in the mud in the rain, and why it happened, which could be any number of reasons that buzzed about his mind like a swarm of bees, each of these theories with both honey and the sting.

But there was no sense to be made from the madness of that kiss. It was wet, rather like his first kiss with Cho Chang, but it was so much more than that. It was impossibly hot, pressing, desperate, and grateful with the thin flavour of something like sugar and something else that Harry wanted to drink by the liter.

If he got near Draco anytime soon, he may just be tempted to do that.

He groaned aloud, which was thankfully a sound not out of place that night, everyone who cared about Quidditch, which was the majority of Gryffindor, was quietly griping about the defeat, trying to take the loss gracefully and failing miserably. They avoided Harry's eye at all costs and a few had patted him on the back again, complaining loudly about Malfoy until it became a heated debate in the common room that he had fled from.

He was being pulled in several directions, all of which ended with Draco, whether that end was angry at him or lusting after him, he was bound tight to him by the curse and what had happened that day.

He knew he should really be thinking about the lady of the House of Malfoy, whom ranks higher than the heir, whom left the curse smoldering at the edges with a fervent promise that, if broken, would likely kill him.

If Draco were killed, that is.

Which he would never allow to happen. Draco was…important to him. He'd invaded his every thought, gained a rank in Harry's mind that was above simply 'the prat he was forced to call _Master_', he'd nestled himself deep and securely into Harry's heart, twining himself with a power that far surpassed that of even the curse, a power that came from minor kindnesses and pleas rather than false praise and orders.

He'd become very important indeed.

So what Narcissa Malfoy had said was almost unnecessary. How could he allow anything to happen to Draco? Admittedly he'd been asking a lot of 'how could he' questions these days, how could he throw a match for Draco's benefit? He could however, and just for that. For Draco.

He found he could do many things for him.

Such as endure cold detentions and bouts of boredom in the library, Apparate on accident and wank in smelly broom cupboards, bow and indeed, almost easily throw Quidditch games. Some of these things were on command, more on Harry's own will, which made him wonder how far he was _willing_ to go, not under the word of his Master, just to see that smile, a stifled sort of thing but a smile no less.

"Hey mate," Ron said quietly, pulling him from his thoughts and to the unfortunate reality of the disappointed aura of the Gryffindor dormitory and Harry's fevered body, something he did not want Ron to notice.

"Yeah Ron?" he asked, pulling the duvet more snuggly about him and pretending the kiss with Draco never happened.

"I'm sorry about the game, you know, with Malfoy and everything."

Harry was sorry too, less about the game, more about Malfoy, and infinitely about the _everything._ Not to say he was sorry about the kiss, no he was more sorry it hadn't lasted as long as he could have made it, or maybe where it had been, for example if they'd been in the soft heat of the library, pressed close behind a bookshelf, away from prying eyes and Hermione and…

"Everything, yeah." Harry murmured vaguely in agreement.

Ron shifted uncomfortably, pulling at the hem of his pajamas which hung several inches above his freckled ankles, there was a deep frown on his face and his eyes darted to where Dean was despondently doodling on his bed and Neville lay already snoring in his bed. Seamus, presumably, was down in the commons getting smashed on whatever alcohol was left in Fred and George's stash of nicked goods.

"What's wrong, mate?"

Ron looked more uncomfortable under Harry's gaze, turning about on his bed and trying in vain to make his pajama bottoms reach his feet, but Harry waited patiently, knowing that Ron was taking a fair amount of patience himself to not punch Draco whenever he saw him.

"Well," Ron sighed, casting one last unsure glance to Dean before leaning toward Harry, "You know your thing…with Malfoy."

The secretive squint to Ron's eyes told him he should know, but he didn't.

"Do you mean the curse?" Harry whispered questioningly, but Ron shook his head.

"No, the _thing._" He insisted with a maddeningly obvious look on his suddenly blushing face.

"Ron, I've no idea what you're talking about."

"The _thing_! With Malfoy!"

"Kindly explain what _thing_ with Malfoy." the word 'Malfoy' felt odd on his tongue, something that had been once bitter, now coated with a sort of aristocratic sugar, an expensive thing that had been paid in tentative truces and mutual boredom, something that tasted rather like Malfoy's mouth.

"Bloody hell, Harry you're starting to talk like him too!" Ron accused weakly, looking unaccountably pale, his freckles standing out in stark contrast.

Harry made a noncommittal sound and honestly wondered what the harm in it was. Draco was eloquent if not snarky and didn't sound as if he was vomiting a dictionary like Snape did.

"Well anyway," Ron said slowly, again glancing to Dean who had taken absolutely no visible interest in their conversation, his quill working over his sketch book. "You're _thing_ with Malfoy is…well, you're both, you know, gay."

It was Harry's turn to fidget uncomfortably because this was a conversation he was terribly uncomfortable with to have with Ron, just as it had been two years ago when he was dealing with a mild crush on Viktor Krum, much to his best friend's horror and, surprisingly, understanding.

"Yes," Harry answered tightly, now just as paranoid about Dean sitting across the room, even if he trusted him.

"And, um, I just thought that you two might be…you know, um, dating er whatever."

Dean's quill, which had been still in his hand, suddenly burst to pieces, bits of feather and ink exploding across his bed with an impossibly loud _crack_! He swore and jumped up, waving his hand as if it was on fire and scattering the lose pieces of paper from his sketch book across the floor while Harry and Ron goggled at him and Neville sat up sleepily.

This, thankfully, gave Harry enough time to sort through his furiously working thoughts and calm his undoubtedly red face while he and Ron gathered Dean's drawings from the floor and reassured Neville that they were not under attack.

Did he and Draco really seem as if they were together? Naturally there were the vicious rumors the _Daily Prophet_ and gossiping girls spread about Poor Innocent Potter and Manipulative Kinky Malfoy, none of which were true, but Harry trusted Ron not to believe that blatant speculation and complete fantasy those who didn't even know him whispered into ears and smirked about behind closed doors—save for the exceedingly loud Seamus Finnegan.

Yes, he was hanging about Draco Malfoy more than he'd even expect to and yes, he was indeed enjoying far more than he'd ever expect to. Enjoying it enough to question the denial he was about to give Ron.

Before he'd wanted at times to throttle the life from him, but now he simply wanted to snog the life from him, and that seemed like admittance enough that he did indeed fancy Draco Malfoy, even if it was a silent one.

And then there was the kiss, the thing that for a moment had stolen, not to mention scared the life from him. It was still unbelievable to Harry that no one had seen, surely one lingering glance had caught sight of them lying flat out in the center of the pitch, quite obviously kissing. Even through the rain and mud, anyone with proper sight could have seen it. But no one had evidently as there were no rumors saying someone had flying about the school, no, just the usual rubbish about bondage and cat ears, whatever that meant.

Maybe it was Ron that was that one person that _must _have seen—because it was absolutely impossible for not at least a single person not to have. Maybe that's why Ron assumed they were together; maybe he'd seen their exchange in the shadow of the locker rooms and that almost-kiss. There were loads of things he maybe could have seen, unfortunately including Harry's detour to the grimy broom cupboard in the dungeons that he desperately wished he could forget.

Neville was quietly snoring again and Dean had his drawings in order, leaving the two in a silence that seemed to echo with Ron's last stuttered words.

"So, um," Ron mumbled, but Harry saved him from stumbling over some new mortifying sentence.

"We're not dating." He said flatly, which was entirely true.

If not changeable.

"Right," Ron said with an explosive sigh and a lop-sided grin, "Right, I thought so, right then."

Harry laughed softly, watching as Ron's rigid demeanor relaxed into his usual lax and lank self, feeling both curious and disappointed. Why had Ron suspected it? Would he be upset if he were to date Draco Malfoy?

Both were probably stupid questions, he knew, but they were questions a best friend would ask.

"Ron…?" he asked hesitantly into the quiet, "What if I, you know, _were_?"

Harry noticed absently there were a lot of italics in their conversations as of late, along with silences that were filled with his anxious heart pounding.

"Dunno," Ron said finally, a thoughtful sort of sigh to his voice, and Harry turned to find that he was indeed looking thoughtful, "He hasn't been much of a wanker lately, has he? I mean, not since that swearing thing with the, you know,Hermione's _house elf thing_, anyhow."

"Right," Harry nodded. He fully realized what a hell Draco could make of his life with the curse, or Hermione's _house elf thing_ as Ron insisted calling it or as she declared it an 'enchantment gone wrong'. At first Harry had seen it as a curse, then a disease, and now it was starting to look like a second chance of sorts.

"Maybe he's decent." Ron decided, albeit reluctantly and with a look of sincere distaste on his face as if the words were sour in his mouth, "Dunno, Harry."

"Yeah, neither do I." Harry agreed fervently.

~o0o~

Draco never thought of himself as brave.

He thought himself skilled enough with a wand to hex Gryffindors from across a crowded classroom without getting caught.

He thought himself clever enough an actor to get out of the most delicate of situations.

He thought himself smart enough not to cry when he was lying broken on the drawing room floor, because that wasn't courage, that was pure and lucid fear.

But what he'd done had nothing to do with talent or wit and certainly not fear, what he'd done was stupid and reckless and was moreover the most daring thing he'd ever done.

He'd kissed Harry Potter.

That had taken nothing but bravery and maybe a drunk little burst of ecstasy.

He had to have been mildly drunk to do it, and he was indeed intoxicated on triumph just as the rest of his House was, their cheers having sounded from the common room all that night along with the beat of music. He'd been to the victory party—dragged against his will by Pansy and Blaise, naturally, and partook in a few toasts on his behalf and joined in on some Gryffindor bashing before he'd gotten his fill of his favorite chocolate and wine nicked from Millicent Bulstrode's grandmother's famous stores.

He'd been undeniably drunk then, wanking shamelessly well into the night to the memory of that bloody kiss before passing out and awakening with a dreadful headache, but now he was very sober and that kiss haunted him.

The kiss was almost an accident, but he couldn't exactly pass it off as one after he'd said what he did. Maybe if he was lucky, Potter would be his usual guileless Gryffindor self and not find the innuendo in his words.

Draco was rarely lucky, and he knew it.

Draco had meant his words however, whether Potter was his house elf or not that balance he'd lost track of was definitely in favor of the poor, cursed Chosen One. And then there was the fact that he wanted to do much more to Potter than snog him, preferably not in the rain and among hundreds of witnesses.

He'd quietly cursed his teammates for pulling him off Potter as Draco could have let a lot happier if he'd had a few more seconds, maybe just a minute for Potter to, dare he, _kiss back_. He wanted to know if Potter, the bravest Gryffindor of them all, would indeed dare.

But he was grateful that none of those damned teammates had seen what had actually happened, simply congratulating him of the perfect end to a game by 'shoving Potter to the mud where he belonged'.

In actuality, he did what to shove Potter, just in a decidedly different way than the other Slytherins suspected.

~o0o~

"You and Harry then?"

Draco raised a brow at her and said nothing; he'd long since learned to disregard anything Granger said during the lengthy spells spent in the library as rubbish.

It was rubbish she pursued doggedly however. Gryffindors.

"I've just noticed that, not that I've been watching, it's only that the two of you have been here right before me. That is to say, even when I ask you to be here you seem to—"

"Although I'm usually quite content to ignore you, for once I'm trying and failing to figure out what you're saying. You're babbling." He drawled, smirking when her mouth snapped shut audibly and looked the book in her lap as if waiting to read a script from it.

"Well," she said slowly, "I've just noticed that you and Harry spend a lot of time together."

Draco blinked, frowning.

"Yes, well that's because of your demands, rather than my own isn't it?" he said quickly, face feeling unaccountably hot and lips quirking into a smug smile, but whatever did he have to be smug about? Ordering about the Boy Who Lived, of course, but for some reason it felt more conceited toward the fact that he was indeed spending so much time with him.

"But in the evenings as well, don't you two see each other?" she insisted.

"Again, time served in detention."

"But you enjoy it, yes?" she jumped on his words as she would a vague theory.

He didn't reply, but the answer was apparently evident from the look on his face because Granger grinned in her proud, I-knew-it way. Silence passed between them in which she continued to smile at him and Draco was tempted to hex said smile off.

"Granger," he inquired, fingering his wand thoughtfully as he lounged back in the arm chair he'd transfigured, "Where is the Boy Who Lived to Snog Horklumps this dreary Sunday anyway?"

"Oh! I'm not sure, why don't you go find him?"

She said this with the sort of sweetly innocent voice that Pansy often put on when describing a 'reasonable' amount of Galleons to borrow. It did not become Granger at all and Draco didn't trust it for a moment.

And yet not a half hour later he was sauntering into a classroom and shoving the door into the Gryffindor he so wanted to shove into.

"Fuck!" Potter exclaimed, clutching his head where it smashed into the stone floor from being pushed forward by the door.

"Thought you'd gotten out of that habit," Draco chuckled unapologetically, although he felt the absurd need to kiss better the bruise that would undoubtedly appear on Potter's forehead.

There was the kiss, cropping up in his mind again, begging to be repeated, like the forbidden fruit that needed to be tasted. Merlin, Potter's lips had been like worn and tattered silk, chapped and bitten yet soft and had a hint of a flavour that seemed to have a price to it.

A price in the form of a wall let down, a boundary crossed, a rule broke, and maybe a curse or two, respectively.

"It wasn't a habit, it was a command." Potter growled, and Draco was thankful for the Gryffindor trait of obliviousness, although he was sure, really he was hoping, that Potter wasn't oblivious enough to simply dismiss his words as a meaningless Slytherin taunt.

"Don't you owe me, Master?"

Now that was no meaningless taunt, although Potter was obviously trying to put it off as one with a smirk that didn't quite belong on his flushing face, perhaps Draco needed to remind the Gryffindors not to try and fail to be Slytherin.

"Really? Such audacity from a house elf." he chided, "Go to the corner Potter and think about what you did."

He was frowned at and cursed at, but Potter obediently backed himself into the corner of the room, leaning there with a petulant look that could be mistaken for pouting.

Now that looked rather fetching on Potter's face, his full bottom lip stuck out and eyes glowering with a thinly veiled amusement. Draco perched on a desk nearby and drank in the view, plans and orders passing through his head without pause for any further thought. Potter was far too distracting for him to scheme properly.

What he said in the shadow of the Quidditch locker rooms, he stood by. He'd forgotten Potter really needed those appalling spectacles, he probably owed him much more than 'house elf for a day' and he was thankful he'd been allowed to win.

His mother, likely taking the chance to escape the prison of her own home, had watched him that day, her stare as heavy as any amount of raindrops soaking his hair. He made her proud, by the small twitch of a smile to her somber and cadaverously pale face, her beautiful fair skin marred to a sickly grey from the horrors staining the manor's carpets' crimson.

Potter had helped him to put that smile there, be it however small and pained, it had made him forget for a moment that home was a place of nightmares now instead of a quiet solitude of luxuries he longed for, the silence pressing him with an affection only the residents of the ancient manor felt.

He owed Potter for that.

"Ron is trying to set me up with Terry Boot." Potter blurted, shrinking back into his corner and looking like he'd very much fancy to disappear into that little shadow.

"Terry Boot is a slut," Draco replied sagely, rather glad for the distraction from his dark thoughts. Gossip was an inane subject he was well-versed in thanks to the devilish Pansy Parkinson.

"Is he now?"

"He has a thing for Slytherins as well, so I doubt the Gryffindor Golden Boy would really be his type."

"It's because Slytherins are kinky, isn't it?" Potter grinned.

"Do you really insist on pursuing that?" Draco sighed, and then smirked, "Alright, you've caught me Potter. I have a severe and unhealthy interest in tea cozies and green socks."

"I knew it!" Potter cried victoriously, "So you _do_ want me to make you wear nothing but a tea cozy?"

"What about you're little kink for Horklumps?" Draco countered, the blush on his face was far too obvious however and Potter was smiling like a shark.

"An order again, now wasn't it?" he practically purred, "You still owe me a house elf for the day, don't you _Master._"

Potter was _flirting_.

Gryffindors don't flirt, they proclaim and promise and certainly don't smile slyly while alluding to lewd and spectacularly appealing sex kinks. Draco was a Slytherin and he'd been the one to start this flirting business in the first place, so it was completely unfair for Potter to start using it against him. If not hot, anyway.

Draco wanted to unnerve him, take away that bravery Potter so relied on and make it his own. He wanted to dare to lick away every last tendril of courage Potter had to offer until he was a scared, wanting, needing, _begging_ puddle of house elf in his arms, bowing and saying 'Master' over and over and over…

But Draco was a coward.

Potter shifted and blushed, that mocking swagger gone and his green eyes revealing the hesitation Draco was carefully hiding. The sky out the window near the corner was just as stormy and dark as it had been the day before. It was the same sky they'd kissed under when he'd gotten that stupid burst of bravery. Now he had to rely on Potter to be just as fearless and face something wonderful and yet somehow more frightening than a Cruciatus Curse.

"You owe me a bit more than that kiss, anyway."

There was something to be said for Gryffindor bravery.

Potter's voice was soft, hoarse; almost pleading and it sent a tingle of magic electric down his spine and stole all his snide remarks about Gryffindor courage. Really all that could be said now would be a moan or two most likely.

He shivered pleasantly, but forced his gaze to meet Potter's, praying that the boy across the room couldn't hear the erratic thunder of his chest. He mouth felt terribly dry and it took him longer than it should to articulate the words that had meant to be quietly clever and drawling, but now were just shamelessly wanton sounding and squeaky.

"You're wish is my command, Master."

The gentle warmth of Potter's eyes turned to a wildfire, dark and feral rather than the embarrassed and spooked boy that had stood there not a moment ago. This was the real courage Draco had been awed at; indeed this went past the audacity needed to face down the Dark Lord unflinchingly.

This was something Draco wanted to taste, something he wanted to feel.

And with an order, he did.

"Kiss me again Draco."

The space between them was quickly closed as Draco obeyed, and Draco at last had Potter's lips against his own again, but this time Potter dared. In fact, he dared to be the one to push a hand into his hair, the nerve of that Gryffindor! Mussing up his hair! But all was quickly forgiven when Potter's tongue darted out to swipe across Draco's bottom lip, gently asking permission of his master to have a more definite taste of the forbidden flavour they both sought in the other's arms.

Lips parted and sparks ran rampant in Draco's body. He faintly wondered if this was anything like what Potter felt from his praise, but thoughts were short-circuited by those same sparks as the hand that wasn't ruthlessly messing up Draco's hair began to tentatively wander down Draco's abdomen, a Seeker's precise fingers seeking to no doubt undo him.

Even through the haze and something rather like fireworks, he had an idea, one that was unshakable and infectious, impulsively driving his actions to pull away from Potter's brilliant mouth. The whine that came from Potter would probably haunt him forever, although it was muffled when Potter began planting open mouthed kisses all along his jaw and neck. Draco kissed where Potter had banged his head onto the floor and felt absolutely foolish when he froze.

What had possessed him to do that? It was not something to be done in the heat of a moment that could so easily be lost, something flimsy and based on nothing more than a few silent dares and an acquiescence. And yet it felt right, so undeniably right that it nearly hurt when Potter questioned it.

"Kiss it better, Potter." He mumbled in a way he would never admit to being miserable against his forehead, his lips trailing to touch that famous scar.

Potter didn't move, but his grip never moved, and then it tightened to something neither of them would admit to be tender, all the heat becoming something more than just the animalistic need to consume and have. There was giving involved.

Potter's kisses trailed further down, pressing through his shirt with no less power that sent desire licking through his nerves, his mouth moved over each rib and then lingered at a spot Draco recalled with a jolt that it had been bruised and injured by a sharp Stunner.

Draco's hairline tingled and he wasn't sure why.

But Potter's kisses kept going...up to his left shoulder...and down his arm.

He jerked away as if burned just as the door to the classroom banged open and the face of Anthony Goldstein gaped inquiringly at them.

Anger replaced the lust coursing through him, face heated both embarrassed and ashamed. Potter had nearly seen what stained his left forearm. He'd nearly kissed it for Merlin's sake! Of course, Potter never had to know this, thanks to the Ravenclaw that was glaring at them.

He should be grateful.

But Draco was angry and didn't particularly like this Ravenclaw.

Truthfully, it was because the prat flaunted the Weaslette on his arm and made Draco's harsh words that had earned him a Stunner true.

And just as truthfully, a stupidly daring part of him wanted to know what Potter would make of the mark on his arm.

Draco knew he was better off being a coward.

"Potter, I want you to curse Goldstein."

~o0o~

The curse snapped like a tight wire under Draco's words and his hazed mind cleared ruthlessly, abruptly filling with hexes and curses and all sorts of nasty things to do to Anthony Goldstein.

Admittedly, he'd thought of all these things before, but that was in the dark, pessimistic hours spent in the corner of the common room, watching happy couples snog. It wasn't fair; they were all free to trial and error, a proper love life that eventually, hopefully, ended with someone wonderful who completed them. Their choices weren't dictated by the expectations of the entire Wizarding world.

But his were.

It'd been outright rebellion, coming out, but it'd been the best thing he'd ever done for himself.

That and daring to flirt with Draco Malfoy.

Yes, everything had been absolutely sterling until Goldstein stuck his overly large head into the door. But curse him? Was that necessary?

The curse was pulling him, just as it had lead his mouth down Draco's arm, for whatever reason, under whatever command, and his wand slipped into his hand, the tendrils of the curse constricting about his muscles and twitching, dragging, pulling.

He was under the hand of a vindictive puppeteer, one whose eyes were suddenly guarded and cold after they'd just been squeezed shut and glazed over in pleasure.

Goldstein went down and Harry didn't even know what he'd done.

There was no praise, no satisfaction, just a confusion and disquiet, as if he was missing something glaringly obvious.

The moment of bodies pressed together and mouths moving had passed, giving way to this awkward angle that seemed to separate the boy that had once been so close to him by miles, those December sky eyes churning in a storm that Harry could only image the power of, the depth to.

Gone now were the days of the coldly friendly thing in the stagnant air of the library, he knew, now replaced with something dangerously hot and the air was crackling with suspicion. It was as if a dare had been met and a promise broken.

He wondered how far he was willing to go for Draco Malfoy.

He wondered how far Draco Malfoy was willing to make him go.

~o0o~

**A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review!**


	8. Stretched

Stretched

Anthony Goldstein was back on his feet, whining to Ginny and sending glares Harry's way.

Harry felt those glares on his back and Ginny's displeasure with him all about, it was like a presence, a clawing, insistent one that was very distracting at Quidditch practice.

Draco had quit Quidditch. Indefinitely.

He wouldn't answer Harry's questions as to why he had. Nor would he answer his questions as to why he'd told the panicking Professor Flitwick that it'd been he and not Harry that had cursed Goldstein into unconsciousness.

Harry was worried, the silence between them seeming to fill with speculation and more suspicion. This quiet left room for Harry to notice things, now understanding why Hermione shushed Ron so often, it was in the uninterrupted quiet, strangely empty and barren without scathing snipes and self-satisfied smirking, that Harry saw there was more to Draco than what the drawling voice said.

The smirk may remain, but it couldn't brighten the ashen look to his skin, the glare doing nothing to dispel the purpled marks of insomnia beneath his eyes. He snapped and became immaculately nasty whenever Harry dared to ask him if he was getting enough sleep, but that just brought about murmurs of crankiness that he studiously refused to address. He'd be cold, strong, and defiant, a snarling superiority to every word and yet, unaccountably, Harry believed the bravado to be nothing more than a façade. Yet another mask the Ice Prince wore.

And though his voice may have never faltered, those slender fingers did, the slightest of shakes to them, wavering over his parchment at odd intervals. It was at these intervals that the mask slipped, giving way to a slump-shouldered and very tired person. His eyes got glazed, then suddenly impossibly bright and narrowed as if fighting pain. Before they turned to Harry and became perfectly blank, if not suspicious.

Let him suspect, let him know that Harry was watching, it made no difference for Harry knew Draco was smart enough to realize that he'd be watchful after…whatever had happened that day.

Whatever had happened remained somewhat a mystery, never addressed because of Draco's volatile mood. It wasn't for lack of trying on Harry's part, always hinting with a horrible obviousness and even snapping at him once, all to be returned with a maddeningly cool look and the rising of a single pale brow. Heck, even Hermione, although she had no idea what Harry was brooding over, had tried to coax the stubborn Slytherin into saying _something_ about _something_.

That was the day Draco had called her a Mudblood for the first time in Merlin knows how long.

That had also been the day Harry had hit him since the incident in the courtyard.

There were far too many 'incidents' between he and his Master, but this had been the first since insults turned to mild flirtations and glares became lingering glances. Even curses had turned to kisses, and maybe it was the need to make better the angry red mark he'd inflicted across Draco's sickly pallid skin with one such kiss that made it all the more painful.

Draco had just sat there, looking up at Harry from his seat in their little haven within the library, his face still that infuriatingly blank mask that Harry wanted to slap some more feeling into before, incredibly, it shattered, crumpled to someone with bright eyes, tinged with a pain that someone much older felt, and not someone who looked so abruptly and dreadfully young.

Harry opened his mouth to say something—not even sure of what—but Draco had stood and left, his strides long but lacking the confidence they usually carried, the hurried steps of someone bearing an excruciating burden on their mind. So Harry was left standing there open-mouthed along with a frowning Hermione, whose soft voice returned him to reality,

"I don't think you should have slapped him like that."

"He shouldn't have called you that." Harry retorted, feeling less mad at Draco and more at Hermione.

"I know that and so does he, but he did." she shrugged, and picked up the book she'd dropped, "You shouldn't push him."

"What am I apparently pushing him for?" Harry exclaimed, his outrage growing to a size that wouldn't be accommodated by the volume requirements of the library. He could hear the clicking of Madam Pince's shoes on fast approach to either violently shush or oust them.

"If there's one thing I've learned from Ron, and there really is only one thing," she rolled her eyes, "it's that you thick-headed boys won't admit to anything that makes you weak. And that thing that makes you weak, that hurts you, is all you think about, therefore, you, stupidly, lash out at the people you're around to make you look strong."

Harry opened his mouth—this time to vehemently protest—but was silenced by a look that rivaled McGonagall's.

"You don't mean it, you don't mean to hurt your friends, but you do and then you feel so much more miserable. You've made yourself all alone and you believe that it makes you brave. It's a dreadful, miserable delusion."

There were many things Harry wanted to ask then, like how Hermione made it sound so true that it hurt right down to his guilty, curse-addled core that was gnawing at his insides with a dull roar, as if contained by the library's need for peace. But Madam Pince poked her head about the corner to glare at them and, in Harry's case, oust him from the library on the punishable offense of being too loud in the sacred space of the library.

The curse had deemed striking his Master an offense punishable by pitching himself off the Astronomy Tower. As the ringing in his ears turned to a screech of outrage and the tangled bits of the curse within him seemed to cut through his organs and snap, each flailing and _burning_ like a live wire.

Every tendon in his body demanded movement, every vein tingled with the need to be spilt, his skin prickled in its desire to be broken and Harry didn't understand what had gone so wrong, what had been niggling at the fraying lines of the curse like a song waiting to be sung, familiar in its tune, but words unknown. It was an order that sat there, as if poised on the edge of a violin, the strings the hair on the back of his neck and the bow the sour swoop of his stomach—foreboding and adamant, unmovable and important.

It was an order that Harry had broken.

He'd sworn to protect Draco, do everything in his power to assure that the heir to the House of Malfoy was not harmed—as directed by the lady of the House of Malfoy, whose power is only superseded by the head.

And he'd hurt Draco, who was hurting on his own, internally, but it was an agony real and unacceptable to the curse no less.

It was only now, while his hands scrambled at his wrists, nails shredding the flesh and bringing up blood with a sickeningly sweet satisfaction, that he realized that Narcissa Malfoy would have only made him promise to protect Draco if he were in danger.

Draco was in danger, but at the moment, so was Harry, and the danger was twisting and writhing within him, dragging his feet forward on taut puppet strings and looking for height—for pain—for his Master.

~o0o~

Draco disliked Anthony Goldstein, him and his glaring, griping, gloating ginger girlfriend; he hated her right down to the roots of her flaming head.

But he hated Theodore Nott more.

He hated him because a part of Draco pitied him, but was largely disgusted with the boy and his jealousy. Jealousy of filth marking his arm, staring at it as if upon a delicacy rather than the stain of a madman and the murders he commissioned, unbelievably, yet understandably, it was the honeyed appeal of blood spilt that lured the boy like a moth to flame.

Only Draco knew how badly he'd be burnt if he were to take the Dark Mark.

No one spoke of the horror of the Dark Lord, only of his power and the almighty terror and fear he spread about his enemies rather than his followers, but it was they, hiding behind masks and terrified admiration that felt the horror. They bore the brunt of the Dark Lord's ever swinging moods—his fury in the form of multiple curses when he was thwarted, or his happiness in the echoing memory of a little Muggle girl's dying scream along with his maniacal laughter forever etched to their minds, just like that bloody, disgusting, woefully permanent mark and their own dashed hopes of glory.

His good moods were just as dangerous as his bad, Draco quickly learned. Those days of dreaming of being praised and appreciated by the Dark Lord far, far behind him.

Nott was still dabbling in his however, indeed angry that Draco had gotten the 'privilege' before him and Draco unfortunately knew the murderous, sadistic, conceited fantasy he was entertaining, but nevertheless pitied him. He would no doubt learn the hard way about the Dark Lord's moods and how bitter blood really tasted.

As if there was any better way.

The Dark Mark was burning, turning Draco's own blood foul and seemingly scarce. He felt faint and dizzied, and Potter's presence, and persistent questions, did nothing to help that. Potter wanted to know what the kiss was, a subject that Draco was losing the sleep he didn't have to lose over, although it was rather pleasant to have green eyes and smooth skin haunting his subconscious rather than corpses and calls of _"Crucio!"_

But Draco couldn't think of snogging the Boy Who Lived mere days, terribly short things they were, before a _gathering_. That was suicide, which before indulging in the delights of Harry Potter's mouth, seemed like a mildly welcoming thing.

Wouldn't have that been quaint? Rather, who hadn't guessed that Lucius Malfoy's disenchanted son dove off the Astronomy Tower and to his escape from a responsibility the spoiled child couldn't handle? He knew it was whispered, he saw it clear in the glint of the Dark Lord's malicious smile that he was not expected to succeed in his mission.

But he was beginning to find that the unexpected was a thing just as welcome as the end of his servitude to the Dark Lord.

Potter was always doing things unexpectedly, like outing himself, or being civil to his merciless 'Master', or throwing a Quidditch match for such a wretch, or kissing that sardonic, and thoroughly surprised, Slytherin.

Then he'd slapped him. That was unexpected indeed.

But not undeserved.

He shouldn't have called Granger, who by all means had been downright sweet to him as compared to the distrust the rest of the Gryffindors treated him to, a Mudblood. It was something that had once rolled effortlessly off his tongue, that thrill running through him of knowing that was something his great and glorious father said. Now it lost the luster of being a mildly 'forbidden' word and was unpleasantly pungent in his mouth.

There was a look of utter shock on her face, evidently in her mind Draco had become a person who'd never say such a thing in civil conversation, much less a short quip spoken in irritation. Draco wished he could still be that person.

Then Potter was looming over him, expression unbelieving and betrayed, and then it was Draco who was unbelieving and betrayed because Potter's open palm smacked soundly across his face, the sound terribly loud in the muffled silence.

It stung, and Draco wanted to sting the Gryffindor back, some sharp comment about how he hit like a ponce poised on his lips before they thinned, his throat feeling unaccountably tight because he saw, lucid and bright in Potter's verdant eyes, that he already was hurt.

It fell, his mask, and he knew it because Potter's eyes widened and features softened, something that made Draco feel even worse.

And it was that moment again, the moment where he could take what he wanted even if it meant daring to degrade himself and apologize and beg for forgiveness like the house elf Potter was now. He could even order Potter to do something, make him the one to beg for forgiveness and kiss the smarting mark on his face better.

But Draco wasn't brave enough to do it, and he found himself running away from that moment, just as he'd run away from allowing Potter to discover the Dark Mark.

Draco didn't take what he wanted, and that was unexpected, surprising even himself.

The tears pricking his eyes were even more unexpected.

Merlin, he was acting like a sodding girl with a broken heart! His heart, blackened and cruel as it may be, was perfectly fine thank you very much. And he was most certainly not going to go lock himself away in a bathroom and bawl his eyes out over Harry Potter like so many other hopeless students no doubt did.

He couldn't mope in the Slytherin common room, where Blaise and Pansy hounded him with questions about Potter and Nott ogled his left arm and hissed his 'subtle' hints about Draco's mission that his father had undoubtedly told him about if he wasn't busy snogging Terry Boot. Boot was not only a sickeningly flirty annoyance, but he also was Anthony Goldstein's best mate, so Draco would be face with his pouty glares as well.

Draco had hexed enough people that week.

He had another retreat to shut himself away in, a place that a scarce few could find and even less knew about. It wasn't a place he necessarily liked, but it was quiet at least. Nott had yet to discover where he was 'dutifully' carrying out his mission.

The Vanishing Cabinet was an austere figure that loomed out from the piles of rubbish and forgotten forbidden goods, always seeming to glare at him even while covered in a dusty and stained sheet. Draco didn't like it and he had the distinct feeling that it didn't like him either, always creaking and spooking him, the gaping maw of its open door seeming to strain to swallow him completely.

"Shut up," he growled at the offending furnishing, slamming its door with more force than warranted, the sound echoing just as loudly in the quiet as Potter's hand striking him had.

"I've likely caused an avalanche now," he mused, aloud.

He knew it was wrong to speak to himself, in an empty room which although was much better than a room full of people, was no less crazy if not a little desperate. Lonely.

That Room of Lost Things had an air of something desperate about it, the ghost of the frantic rush of students abandoning whatever thing they eventually forgot echoing down through the ages. Draco's own desperate charade occupied the valleys and mountains of junk, pretending to mend an impossible to mend Vanishing Cabinet, just getting it to transport an apple or two ("Greyback, that freak leaving me half eaten cores stinking of Merlin knows what." He grumbled to himself with a shudder) and nothing more. Whoever attempted to use it would no doubt be splinched or lost in limbo or even find themselves in a toilet a fortnight later in the case of Marcus Flint.

Draco had no desire to make the sinister cabinet work.

"An ingenious plan, yes," he acknowledged, addressing his audience of broken broomsticks and congealed potions, "But one that won't work."

He didn't expect to be answered, and naturally he was scared out of his wits when he was, by gentle click of the door seeming to chuckle at him. He whirled around, glaring accusingly at the door, the door that always shut, the door that _someone had opened._

Heart thumping, he approached the door, wand at the ready and a Memory Charm racing through his head, the Latin becoming entangled with his own panicked thoughts of being discovered of Nott, that elusive shadow, listening to his little speech and reporting it proudly to his father, outing Draco as the half-arsed spy he was and effectively ending his and his parents lives in one fell swoop of nothing more than a whisper to the Dark Lord.

His hand—which felt unaccountably clammy—reached toward the rusted door knob, closing around the cold metal and—

"Master Malfoy is be going somewhere?"

Something that he would never admit to being a shriek caught in his throat and he started, eyes flickering to the owner of the squeaky, hiccupping voice. A house elf, no taller than his knee, gazed up at him with watery eyes from a three-legged chair nearby, her (he presumed) long-fingered hands working at the dirtied blouse she wore.

For a moment he thought that the house elf was just as lost and abandoned as the rubbish she sat on, but a memory niggled at the back of his mind, of the wind in his hair, the smell of collected people and his mother's perfume, of the cushioned seat he sat on while watching the Quidditch World Cup…

"You're that elf from the Minister's box!" he exclaimed, distinctly recalling her round, fearful eyes and squashed tomato nose.

"Winky is being Winky," she muttered, giving him a mildly confused look.

"Yes, but you were at the Quidditch World Cup…" he trailed away, "So what are you doing here?"

"Winky is being working at Hogwarts," she snuffled, "Winky is not liking Hogwarts. Is not like a proper pure-blood household and Winky is missing a proper pure-blood household."

Draco nodded faintly, wondering if Dumbledore had the same mad ideas about house elf rights as Granger did. He should be suspicious however, and not disgusted, although mildly amused, with the Gryffindors and their fierce love of freedom and equality and all that tripe.

"And what are you doing in this particular room? I don't suppose you plan on cleaning it."

"Winky is be looking, Master Malfoy." she said, casting a gaze about the room before disappearing with a _pop!_

Draco swore under his breath. How dare a house elf just pop off without being dismissed? Although this Winky didn't really seem to be all there, voice thick and eyes glazed and teary, she seemed like an elf that knew her place unlike some.

He was assaulted with another image of Potter in nothing but rags, perhaps that little frock Winky was wearing, little tattered blue bow and all.

"Winky is have find!" her small voice carried to his ears and dispelled his thoughts. She was sitting atop one of the mountains of junk upon a beg of something that looked suspiciously like a Weasley twin product, a scratched and scuffed wooden case clutched to her chest and a delighted look on her face.

"What have you found, Winky?" he called impatiently, his glare bringing her Apparating to his feet with a low bow.

"Winky have found rumored." She beamed.

"'Rumored'?"

She offered up the polished case with shaking arms and Draco snatched it away, examining the scuff marks and listening to a curious tinkling as he shifted the case. It sounded like glass bottles shifting inside, potions, possibly? Some poison left to ferment? He found a rusted bronze latch and flipped it open with a protesting groan of the hinges.

It was a certain sort of potion that lay untouched in velvet lining, but it wasn't the sort of poison Draco had been expecting. It was Firewhisky, centuries old by the look of the label, the two bottles' contents glimmering with confined fire waiting to lick down some lucky tosser's throat and burn them into oblivion. Draco wasn't one to get disgracefully smashed, but the idea to do so was working its way into his mind as liquidly as the alcohol sloshing within the bottles.

"Cheers," he sniggered under his breath, gently running a finger over the smooth glass.

"Master Malfoy?"

Winky was looking inordinately distressed, gazing at the bottles with unshed tears, her fingers twitching as if wanting to swipe them from Draco's hands. Hadn't he heard a snatch of a rumor once about a house elf in the kitchens that constantly got drunk? From the reek of Butterbeer on her, Winky could very well be that sad, sad elf.

"Get moving, were going to the kitchens." He decided, giving her shin a light kick, "I want a proper meal along with this."

A watery shimmer of hope flashed in her eyes as she promptly fell all over herself to get to the door, opening it with a sweeping bow and ushering him out with shuffling feet and a snuffling nose.

Draco wasn't sure if he would give Winky a glass of the age old Ogden's, he was indeed sure that it wasn't normal of masters to award their elves with alcohol. Then again, Draco didn't think they awarded them with a hot snogging session either.

She scampered behind him, staring adoringly at the case tucked under his arm while his thoughts drifted to the other odd house elf, the one with a free will and the ability to make him both angry and wanting all at once. He was not going to apologize to him because it was only what courtesy expected of him and not what he felt. He did regret calling Granger a Mudblood, so decided he may say something—something that it would only take her overly intuitive brain to realize was an apology.

He had ordered Potter not to apologize when he didn't mean it and he suddenly didn't want to be a hypocrite.

He was brought to a staggering halt by a small body flinging itself onto the back of his legs, the case nearly flying from his hands as he turned to glower coldly down at Winky.

"Master Malfoy cannot be going up these stairs!" she cried, "They is be stuck!"

Draco looked down the flight of stairs and found that they were indeed frozen mid-movement, the bottom giving way to the chasm four floors below. Pansy had been nattering on about a fourth year nearly losing his life the other day, but really there was many more dangers than the moving staircases in the castle that could attempt to maim a student.

Take Hippogriffs for example.

"Bollocks," he sighed, shifting the Firewhisky case back under his arm, "We'll have to take the long way then."

He began to turn, but Winky was still clutching to the back of his calves, her hands clenching in the fabric he'd no doubt have to have ironed now, her dirty hands wrinkling the material. She was unmoving, her eyes impossibly wide and fixed forward, gazing down at the end of the staircase. Which Draco noted with a jolt was not empty, a scattering of something dark on the white marble and the unmistakable shape of a wand lying ownerless on the very last step—

Along with a hand gripping the marble.

The case slipped from his fingers and he didn't know if the bottles of Firewhisky shattered on the steps because all he could heart was the blood roaring in his ears as he flew down the stairs, peering over the edge and hating what he saw there.

It was no poor hapless fourth year that dangled above his certain death, but it was Potter, his green eyes filled with alarm, features sweat slicked with strain, and bottom lip bloodied again. It was wrong to see such a valiant hero this way, although so unfortunately this was the line Potter walked and sometimes stumbled on, the terribly thin edge of life and death.

"Master," Potter gasped, his other hand twisting uselessly beneath him and sending him swinging in a worrying way, "D-Draco,"

Draco was snapped from his stupor and did not the cowardly—or the smart thing—instead dropping to his knees and grabbing onto Potter's arm, finding it blood-chillingly wet and practically shred, his hands slipping as Potter winced.

"What the fuck?" he hissed, feeling himself pitch forward with Potter's dead weight, his hand, just as torn and bleeding, losing its purchase on the marble.

"P-punishment," Potter groaned, teeth gnashing as he strained to grab onto the step with his other hand.

It slipped, and Draco felt himself falling to become spread flat out on the stairs, his stomach pressed painfully into the sharp corner of a step, his knees knocking about and bruising as he fought to keep his hold on Potter's arm.

"Damn it, Potter!" he shouted, his voice echoing mockingly all the way down to the bottom floor, where Potter could easily end up a heap of blood and bones, "Apparate like before!"

"I can't!" Potter roared back, his eyes shining bright with fright but still burning as passionate as ever, "I told you it doesn't fucking work like that!"

"And why the bloody hell not? You and your fucking accidental magic!" Draco spat, his nails digging further into Potter's forearm as he felt his chest wrench forward toward the edge.

It was the Quidditch pitch all over, but this time there was no helpful 'accidental magic' to defy the laws of _Hogwarts, A History_ and save Potter's wretched life. Hysteria crept up on Draco, threatening to make him fall along with Potter just to see if they'd survive to wake up blurry and pained in the hospital wing, Draco never having to face the damned _gathering_ he knew was fast approaching and Potter to never face the Dark Lord.

But, in that split second, Draco didn't want to be a coward.

He didn't want to lose Potter.

They jerked forward again, Potter's face drawing into what looked like reluctant defeat, once something Draco craved to see, but now it only curdled in his stomach like a poison before becoming fire through his veins, something like courage and anger surging about in a furious maelstrom, something like Firewhisky.

Determination, pure mad determination and anger. Quite a bit of anger.

"Don't you dare die on me!" he all but screamed, "You're not allowed to die! Do you hear me? Don't fucking die!"

Potter stared up at him incredulously, before his gaping mouth set into a hard line of focus, his white-knuckled hand renewing its grip with a fierce strength, but Draco took no moment to be satisfied as Potter's weight swung and shifted, dragging him dangerously forward before, suddenly, he was bowled backward by an armful of Gryffindor.

"I won't." Potter promised, just a hoarse whisper in his ear, but meaning a desperate amount.

Draco wrapped his arms around the raven-haired boy, who was shaking just as much as he had when he had nearly fallen to his death, giving the comfort he had wanted and generously received in the arms that trembled as they wound around him now. Arms he had nearly lost.

"Don't ever do that again."

Potter pulled back to give him a shakily wry look, his eyes behind his glasses bright but a crooked smile curved his lips.

"Nearly fall four floors off a staircase? I think it happens only once in a lifetime."

"Not for Longbottom, or you apparently."

Potter snickered, a low fluttery sound against Draco's neck that made his breath hitch, hold tightening around Potter's solid weight resting between his legs. Draco wanted to keep him there, tucked under his chin where he could live off of the scent Potter gave off, all October air and well-worn linens, all the sustenance he needed within the verdant depths of his eyes, his meals flesh and sweat and—

"I'm sorry."

There was another surge of unaccountable anger as he took Potter' face in his hands and forced a brutal kiss on his coppery lips, which froze for a moment before responding eagerly, making it all the more difficult for Draco to tear away and hiss against Potter's searching mouth,

"I'm not. What did I tell you about saying you're sorry?"

His eyes drifted open and stared at him with an unfathomable expression, severe and soft all at once. Before Draco could demand to know what he was thinking, Potter kissed him again, chaste and smirking.

"Slytherins never say they're sorry, do they?"

Although he knew Potter full well realized that was a lie, a cardinal rule that Draco had broken, he didn't contradict him, opting to delve in the delights of Potter's mouth instead, tongue snaking to dance sinuously with Potter's, hands twining into black untidy hair.

"Rumored this was also," a high voice stopped their ministrations dead, craning around to see Winky standing at the top of the stairs, holding the undamaged Firewhisky case and watching with disinterest, the anxious shuffle of her feet telling Draco that she would rather be in the kitchens cracking open a bottle of the ages old Ogden's than witnessing Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy snog.

"I wager it is," Potter groaned, "That Parkinson bitch."

"Oi, potty mouth," Draco snickered, "You're Irish boy is just as bad, if not louder and that is saying something indeed."

"Seamus is…" Potter trailed away, rubbing his face tiredly, "You're right, yeah."

Draco smirked before catching sight of Potter's mangled forearm, which likely hurt as much as his own.

"What the hell happened to you, Potter? What tried to eat you?"

Potter blinked before examining his arms with resigned shame.

"I never actually did bite, just tore and scratched."

Draco snatched at Potter's hand and saw that there was just as much blood there, skin and scabs built up under his nails, Draco's own hands smeared with the still flowing blood, making his stomach swoop uncomfortably, a chill running through him.

"It really hurts, the curse?" he heard himself saying, mouth dry and blood running cold.

"It's like the Cruciatus Curse or something."

Draco dropped Potter's hand, mind buzzing and heart sinking with self-loathing. No one deserved the Cruciatus Curse, especially not Potter. It was too much for even a hero to stand, even if the pain didn't last, it scarred deeply, clawing its way all the way down to where you thought you were safe, the lapse of consciousness in sleep becoming a place where it played on your nerves, dragging screams from your throat and terror in your heart-

Potter looked up at him, but Draco was already staggering to his feet, feeling faint and sick, muscles aching and Dark Mark burning more acidly than it had an hour before. It couldn't possibly be tonight could it? Wouldn't that be just brilliant, attending a Death Eater meeting after just saving Harry Potter's life? Brilliant indeed.

"You've bled all over me, I need a shower now. Thanks a lot Potter." he sneered mildly, steeping lightly up the stairs, trepidation growing in his stomach, which had not a moment ago been all warm and filled with the flavour of Potter. He wished he was still in those arms, he wished he could just say in Potter's embrace and ride out the night and hope he didn't die, or his parents didn't die or Severus didn't die or some innocent Muggle didn't die…

Hope was never enough, he knew all too well.

Potter scrambled after him, grasping to his shoulder and whirling him about to face him.

"Draco," he said, eyes firm and unwavering, making Draco feel frightfully transparent, "We need to talk."

"We will," Draco nodded hastily, beckoning Winky over with a snap of his fingers, "But first Winky is going to fix up your injuries and take you down to the kitchens. You're a mess Potter, and I refuse to kiss a mess any further."

He hated the way Potter didn't smile or scowl, his face still stony and staring at him seriously, eyes aflame with his Gryffindor passion, that damnable stubbornness.

He knew exactly how to take that away.

Draco reached out, caressing his hand over Potter's set jaw and pushing it into his unruly hair with the faintest of smirks on his face, the very ghost of amusement he was feeling.

"Bow to your master, Potter."

Potter went ramrod straight, nostrils flared and brows drawn together, and Draco knew he was fighting, straining against something sweet and pleasurable, but a curse just like the poison, acidic and painful tugging through Draco. He smiled bitterly as Potter gave in to the twitches and visibly melted as he bent forward into a deep bow, Draco's fingers playing in the hair that curled at the nape of his neck.

"You're a good elf, Potter," he crooned, leaning forward to feel Potter's shudders as his breath played against the Gryffindor's ear, "Now be a good elf and do as you're told."

He stepped back and Potter's eyes snapped to his, lust-hazed and curse-addled but still somehow defiant even as he bow and quivered like any lowly house elf. Draco graced him with one last smile, a smirk that felt wrong on his face, a lie that Potter saw through right down to the stain burning away his blood and tugging at his sanity, the ringing that sounded hauntingly like screams in his ears, the cold sweat on his skin that felt thick and metallic.

The horror of the Dark Lord that only his servants knew of, something even his enemies were sheltered from.

With a snap of his fingers, Winky latched onto Potter and Apparated them away to the kitchens with a _pop!_ leaving Draco alone with nothing but the muttering of the portraits and the fate he had to face.

His footsteps sounded unaccountably distant as he walked down to the dungeons, down to where Severus would be waiting, grave-faced and silently supportive, ready to lead him to Hogsmeade in cloaked stealth and off to the Manor, a place that was no longer home, quickly becoming a torture chamber of sorts, an asylum that housed the maddest man of them all and his stains, his 'games', ashen faced and terrified as they awaited the slaughter like the animals the Dark Lord proclaimed they were.

Draco had the most sinking feeling that Potter's blood would not be the only spilt tonight.

~o0o~

**A/N~ Sorry for the wait! Thanks for reading, please review!**

** Special thanks to That One Harbinger and, as always, Sylent!**


	9. Fraying

Fraying

Things were bad.

Harry knew there was something, something inexpressibly bad, something painful and tormenting, something that flickered in Draco's eyes and trembled in his hands, catching in his throat and making him seem like nothing more than a child, shivering and hiding behind a cold mask of carved smirks.

It was also pretty bad that he was drinking with a house elf. Pathetic, really.

He wasn't really drinking with Winky, not yet anyway, simply seated at one of the kitchen's tables and swirling the amber Firewhisky in the tumbler the elves reluctantly supplied. They watched Winky with thinly veiled distaste and Harry with a mildly disapproving glare, but undying adoration nonetheless, making Harry wonder how often a student stole down to the kitchens and asked for a glass of something stronger than Butterbeer.

The liquid in his tumbler glowed like dying embers as he sloshed it aimlessly, finding no warmth in its fiery gaze as his thoughts were turned to chilly winds on the Quidditch pitch that Draco no longer flew on, and the even frostier look that the Slytherin shot him whenever Harry asked if he was alright.

"Is alright," Winky nodded knowingly as if reading his thoughts from across the table, "Master Malfoy said we can has rumored."

Harry hadn't the foggiest why Winky referred to the well-aged Ogden's as 'rumored', but had a niggling suspicion that his master hadn't specifically given them permission to drink the 'rumored'.

That didn't stop him from downing a great gulp in a split second of rebellion that left him sputtering and fevered the fire licking down his throat and spilling into his stomach where it pooled with an uncomfortable heat. He knew it was bad to try and drown his thoughts, brooding and maddeningly suspicious things they were, in alcohol, but the frustration that ached at his every cell argued otherwise.

"Harry! What do you think you're doing?"

He sprung from his seat, nearly knocking over the remainder of the priceless Firewhisky as he whirled about, flushing guiltily.

Ginny stood there, blushing herself and staring at Harry with wide brown eyes, just as surprised and apparently as embarrassed as Harry was.

"What are you doing?" Harry countered when he regained his voice, hoarse and burned from the Firewhisky that left his mouth hot and lips numb.

"I—I asked you first."

Harry wiped his mouth and looked for an answer that wasn't pathetic and complicated and involving Draco Malfoy—in short, one that wasn't the truth.

"Visiting Dobby," he settled on lamely, before he cast his gaze about the kitchen sharply, "Where is he anyway?"

"Oh, I sent him off," Ginny said quietly, busying herself with plucking the end of her tattered skirt, "Gryffindor Tower's been a bit of a mess, you know because of Hermione's barf thing, or whatever she calls it."

Harry laughed weakly, the subject of S.P.E.W. and house elves infinitely less amusing after the last weeks.

"Actually," Ginny suddenly announced in a falsely breezy voice, as she tossed her red mane of hair over her shoulder, "you wouldn't know about what's going on in the common room, would you?"

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know," her high voice sung as she took a few steps—ones that looked distinctly threatening—toward Harry so her could see the smoldering anger in her eyes, "You've been hanging about your precious Malfoy too much to bother and pop in on the common room, haven't you?"

Harry glowered right back, trying not to think about how much he hurt Ginny, disappointed her, how much she loved him, or how precious Draco really was to him. He wasn't sorry for any of these things, he realized, and he wasn't about to let Ginny make him feel guilty, that had become a talent of hers indeed.

"I can hang about whoever I want Ginny." He said evenly. Her eyes flashed as if she very much wanted to say otherwise, but her lips merely turned down in a determined frown.

"He's no good, Harry."

"Maybe he's not the best of people, but he's not that bad, not really."

"He's the worst of people, really."

"_Really_, you don't know anything about him." Harry retorted, plopping back down in his seat and resigning himself to a row only a stubborn Weasley could carry on.

"But I do!" she exclaimed, sitting down next to him and nestling herself incredibly close, her voice dropping to an excited whisper, "He's up to something and I know it. Harry, he's only using you in some evil scheme he's cooked up."

Harry addressed her solemn look with one that she evidently didn't expect, face falling, but the passionate resolve never leaving her eyes.

"You know Ron doesn't reckon he's so bad." He offered.

"I know things Harry."

"What do you know about Draco?" he sighed, grimacing as she tensed at the use of the devious and most villainous Malfoy's first name.

"He uses people. He's a selfish, greedy, spoiled brat." Ginny ploughed on, undeterred by Harry's wry stare.

"And where did you hear all this? Lavender needs to stop spreading rumors; she's getting to be as bad as Pansy Parkinson."

"Not Lavender or even Parkinson told me this." She said softly, eyes positively shining with a slightly mad light, "Terry Boot himself told me."

Harry stared incredulously, laughter bubbling in his charred throat.

"Terry Boot? The Boy Who Lives to Shag?" he hadn't laughed at first at Draco's title for Boot, but now it seemed dreadfully fitting.

"Terry dated Malfoy." she insisted, "So he knows firsthand how Malfoy uses people to get his wicked way."

Harry's chuckling died instantly, a blush creeping up his neck and an idea blooming irrevocably in his mind, the seed planted there by an awkward and inquiring Ron and only fertilized by the rumors milling about the school and the warmth of Draco's gazes and the heat of his kisses and now by the things Ginny was implying.

"We're not d-dating or anything like that," he stuttered, nervously fidgeting away from her proximity, "Nothing like that."

But everything seemed like that: the snogging, the feeling, the undeniable fact that he _fancied Draco Malfoy_. He wanted to claim Draco just as Harry was claimed by him, a claim staked by not a curse, but something more powerful and just as binding. The idea that he could—that Draco could be _his_—was like an order singing through the curse, a melody that he couldn't shake from his thoughts.

A hope leapt into Ginny's eyes at his words that made him wince, guilt slithering its way back along with pity for poor Anthony Goldstein. Uncharitable thoughts, words he'd seen visibly poised on Draco's lips whenever they glimpsed the 'happy' couple, twined their way along with the guilt and pity, but he shook those away, wishing desperately to be alone again with his Firewhisky and his own kind.

Things were bad if he was surrendering himself to the fact that he was a house elf, eagerly waiting on his beloved Master Draco.

No doubt things would get worse.

"Harry, you need to stay away from him." she went on, serious again although she peeked at him coyly from behind the curtain of her hair.

"I don't need to do anything." He growled, swinging his legs around to face Winky, who sat and clutched at her the bottle of Firewhisky for dear life, gazing at Ginny as if she might steal it away from her.

"Harry, listen—"

"No, I'm not going to," he declared airily, a tone specifically belonging to Draco and specifically to annoy Ginny, "In fact, I'm deaf. Deaf and smart enough to know that Terry Boot is nothing but a gossiping slut."

She gave an angry huff that might have been a gasp as she rose to her feet, arms crossed and hair tossing wildly in her agitation. Harry ignored her, opting to examine the whisky left in his tumbler with profound fascination.

"Is that Ogden's?" she asked flatly.

"What else?" Harry granted her a glance, watching as her keen stare lingered on the battered case on the table.

"Looks like its old, the good stuff."

With that she left, slipping out the portrait door with elves biding her goodbye in her wake. Harry wondered if he'd been too harsh with her, the guilt sneaking its way into his heart again before he banished it forcefully with another, more tentative, drink of the Firewhisky. He didn't want to date Ginny, he didn't care if Boot, who really was just a whore, was her boyfriend's best friend, he didn't think Draco was plotting his doom, and he wasn't sorry.

By the third glass of Firewhisky, he wasn't sorry he'd called Ginny a slut.

He was floating by then, drifting on a river that was carrying him to a carefree place, leaving all those brooding thoughts about his master to burn away in the scalding waters he poured down his throat, one tumbler full after the other. He wasn't sorry about anything in this state really, not about nearly taking his own life that night, not about Ginny or Anthony Goldstein or Terry Boot or anyone.

He wasn't regretting anything, aside from a sinking, pulling, clawing feeling that he wasn't doing something right. Strings pulling him in the haze he'd drenched his worries in.

"Winky," he said slowly, his voice the only sound in the emptied kitchens aside from Winky's watery snuffling. The other house elves had popped away to take care of whatever chores needed to be done in the dead of night, which Harry wagered was a lot considering he hadn't seen a single elf about the castle until fourth year.

"Winky is being here," she squeaked, clutching more tightly to her tumbler.

"Am I a good house elf like my master says?"

Winky squinted at him and Harry blushed, sincerely hoping that he was a good elf like his master so often liked to whisper in his ear. Harry quite liked the whispering, he also quite liked his master's voice, his name on his master's skilled tongue. Skilled that tongue was indeed, with both words and other things…

"Harry Potter is be being…not very proper." Winky decided, nodding, "but if Master Malfoy is be saying so, the Harry Potter is be a good elf."

Harry frowned, it wasn't precisely the answer he was looking for, but he had to agree with Winky. He resisted; something no self-respecting house elf did. He wasn't very proper at all, assuming he was a—an _equal_ to his Master, even some wayward thoughts suggesting he was _better_ than his master, which was unthinkable. Wrong, like a scream in the middle of a song.

"What should I do?" he mumbled miserably, running a hand through his hair.

"Hm," Winky seemed abruptly sober, looking over Harry with sharp, clear eyes, scrutinizing him with a thoughtful look while Harry sat and felt awkward and inefficient.

"Winky thinks that Harry Potter needs to obey, and Harry Potter needs to be elfish."

"Elfish?"

"Elfish."

"Like, bowing more?"

Winky nodded, nearly knocking herself from her chair in the force of it.

"Yes, bow more is good." She said.

"And…helping my master?"

"And Harry Potter shall call him Master."

Harry smiled, "I like helping him, my master."

Something within him thrummed appreciatively and he kept beaming and kept drinking, warm, contented, and unaware.

Blissfully, blessedly unaware.

~o0o~

Draco had something writhing inside him, something with sharp, but with slippery sick edges that dug into his everything. He was grimacing against it, against the coldness that made his steps stiff and labored, which shivered through his hands and set him on edge, aware of every creak and crack of the ancient castle around him.

Terribly, dreadfully aware.

He was aware of Severus' lingering hand on his shoulder, but he was numb to the comfort, numb to the words, gruff and clinical but with concern nonetheless, that his guardian said. He was aware that his feet were carrying him down the path he always followed after _gatherings_, off to the nearest showers to wash before Pomfrey tracked him down to fussily mother him.

He felt incredibly and completely dirty, the few smudges of blood he couldn't seem to wipe from his hands spreading to cover every inch of him, screams drenched over him like filth and curses poisoning him, sinking past the blood to settle in his gut along with that serpent of disgust. He knew from experience that, unfortunately, no amount of soap, or charms, or scalding water would ever wash away what had happened that night.

Merlin, what had happened that night still ran like bladed lightening up his spine, every glance of those crimson eyes stained on his retinas, horrifyingly luminous in the dark of the drawing room. The Dark Lord's stare was penetrating, it sought out lies with a deadly precision and Draco was sure that he suspected something. Perhaps he didn't know that he was running about snogging Harry fucking Potter, but he knew Draco wasn't doing everything in his power to mend the Vanishing Cabinet.

And he knew Draco was afraid. He could smell it.

And Draco was punished for it.

A shudder ran unbidden down his spine and his steps faltered on their way down toward the dungeons, but he merely growled at himself and sped up, trying to direct his thoughts elsewhere—anywhere but the dark path they were wandering down, back in time not more than an hour ago.

He thought of Potter instead, not the nasty, horrific things the Dark Lord had proclaimed about him and the things he'd do to his mutilated corpse, no, he tried to think of his eyes, their gaze that held him firmly in place, far away from the Dark Lord and the curses he spat.

The memory wasn't enough. He needed to see those eyes, lose himself in them, if just for one night, just a few hours encompassed in green to ward away the very black and dreadfully red nightmares that were sure to prey upon him in sleep.

The sick sweep of dizziness descended on him again as he stumbled his way down the stairs—he couldn't be arsed to know which stairs—and he knew Pomfrey would likely find him in a heap on the cold dungeon floor, hopefully reaching him before Nott came sniffing about, that git, dreaming of blood and Muggle guts and—

Draco was sure he was going to retch up what little food he had in his stomach, swooning forward just as lights burst behind his eyes, sure that he was going to split his skull open on the stone floors, sure he was going to fade into a nightmare, a memory, and awake screaming and bloodied just as he did every other time.

But then the unexpected happened.

He was caught, arms wrapping about him in an embrace he could call familiar, maybe even safe, but those were things only Hufflepuffs said. Slytherins did not say those things, rather they said,

"What the fuck?"

It was Potter's arms, their hold so undeniably familiar just like the bloom of heat in his chest when he looked up into the emerald eyes he had so desired to see vague and watery, rather like the house elf he'd left him with. Upon Draco's raised brow he broke into a sunny smile and brushed a loose lock of fringe from Draco's face.

"What the fuck?" he repeated faintly.

"I've got you, Master." Potter smiled, half lifting him for emphasis and Draco felt dizzy all over again.

He very nearly did vomit when he got a whiff of the Firewhisky fumes that were rolling off Potter like a London fog.

"Potter, you drank the entire bottle, didn't you?" he sighed; astonished that innocent little Potter would be one for such a poison, less that he couldn't hold his liquor whatsoever.

"No!" Potter cried indignantly, before lowering his voice and his head, unaccountably abashed, "I mean, no sir, Winky had most of it."

"And I suppose you poured the rest over yourself?" Draco tried to wriggle out of Potter's arms, away from his breath that was churning his stomach.

Potter kept his hold, too tight and pressing before freezing and Draco at last wrest himself from Potter's hold, stumbling back and nearly falling again if not for the hand that latched to his and dragged him near again. Potter wasn't embracing him, just looking, intently, at his hand.

This was when Draco knew how utterly smashed the Golden Boy was.

"You're hurt,"

The sardonic comment caught in his throat and for a wild moment he thought Potter had learned something from the old bat in the North Tower and read his palm, seeing past whatever façade he built to say that he _wasn't_ hurt, wasn't terrified, wasn't waiting for death to inevitably jump upon him shouting, _"Traitor! Blood-traitor!"_

But it was only blood. Blood that smeared off onto Potter's outstretched fingers that he furrowed his brow at, eyes distantly focused. Draco should have known that it would only be Potter to wash him of the sin on his hands, Harry Potter the Saviour of Us All.

"I tripped," he lied, before realizing that he didn't have to explain himself to a drunk. He snatched back his hand and spun on his heel, leaving Potter to be discovered in a hanged-over heap he thought he himself would have previously become.

He overestimated both his strength and Potter's determination as he wobbled and another persistent, if not equally wobbly hand grasped his shoulder and held tight. He sighed, a long, heavy one that seemed to release more than just air as he leaned back into Potter's offered embrace, finding a comfort there he could never have in his godfather's hard words.

He acquiesced to whatever Potter wanted for the moment, which seemed to be nothing more than to cuddle him close and muss his hair, breathing thick breath onto his neck. Draco kept his mind firmly in the moment, knowing the danger of a wandering mind after the horrors he wished hadn't happened, but he did find his increasingly heavy eye lids drifting shut. Despite his fight against the weariness that weighted his bones and the drowsy effect of Potter's heat, he soon found himself in darkness.

It was usually a frightening thing, but now, he couldn't seem to place why. So he started to fade, fade fast into something suspiciously like sleep, a sleep he hadn't had in quite some time, one without nightmares or screams or worries…

Surely, this was Death's embrace, then.

But when he awoke again, it was not to the fires of hell or the bright expanse of heaven. Limbo, it appeared, to be a cold, grimy bathroom.

But fortunately for him, Potter was there, still a cushion against his back, cradling him between his legs and still combing through his hair with his fingers, his breath no less rank with Ogden's.

"How did he get here?" he asked, voice echoing off the dark tiled walls.

"I took my Master here," Potter murmured into his ear, "My Master wanted a bath."

Despite the warmth, a cold chill ran up Draco's spine and he wondered again how much Potter knew, how far he could peek into the thoughts Draco carefully hid from his face, his demeanor.

"How did you know that?" he asked slowly, carefully.

Potter inexplicably giggled at this, his laughter shaking Draco.

"A house elf always knows!"

So the curse was in effect then, naturally the fickle powers it granted only in full use when Potter was utterly pissed. It was just Draco's luck.

"So then we _popped_ in here, then?" he asked wearily, far too tired to grumble about his lack of luck, or the curse, or to even stop and wonder at it. He just wanted to fade into that rest he'd somehow obtained for a moment and pretend that that night had never happened, wash away the memories with what Potter had drowned himself in.

He hadn't tried that yet.

Potter had other plans however, dislodging Draco from his lap and bustling away, his heavy footsteps loud in the cavernous bathroom. Draco scowled down at the cold tile he was left on, but found no will to move himself or question what Potter was doing. Of course, whatever Potter was doing, he meant it to be for his _Master_, a title that still managed to send a pleasant shiver through him.

"I'm not sure just how much I fancy you like this, Potter." he mumbled, blinking when Potter was suddenly inches away, his face earnestly hurt, yet determined.

"How does my Master want his house elf to be?" Potter asked.

Draco almost laughed if not for the tears that glistened in the green eyes before him, he sighed, deciding that he did not like the servile, drunk Potter, but rather the one he could rile and the one that resisted. There was a certain heat he could bask in when he used the curse, and whatever other method he'd developed over years of taunting, to get under Potter's skin, nestle himself there. Feel close to him.

"I want my house elf to be Harry fucking Potter, the Boy I Can Mess With." He said firmly.

Potter's brows drew together in a way Draco would admit to be adorable, but the tears cleared.

"Master wants to mess with me?"

"Yeah, you know, make you do silly and embarrassing things for my amusement."

"Like what?" Potter seemed genuinely eager to do something silly and embarrassing to amuse him, and it'd be stupid not to exploit a smashed, house elfish Harry Potter.

"Roll over," Draco drawled; watching as Potter did, unflinchingly, smiling all the while.

"Sit," Potter obeyed.

"Speak," Potter obeyed.

"Play dead," Potter obeyed.

Draco didn't like this trick, because Potter was an unfortunately fantastic actor. His neck twisted to the side and an awkward angle, limbs splayed out, chest barely moving, those verdant eyes closed as if they may never open again. Just like before, just like that nameless Muggle on his drawing room floor. Expect he'd stared, stared into the abyss, stared at his own blood split across the floor and splashed onto Draco, stared at Draco.

"Stop," he commanded, voice barely a whisper, but a whisper Potter heard and obeyed no less. "Don't die, ever."

Potter's eyes were opened again and gazing at him wide and concerned, like he had when he addressed the blood that wasn't completely washed from Draco's hands. Draco was distantly aware that he'd drawn his knees to his chest and his hands clutched them tightly, Potter reached out and touched them, held them, murmuring a spell that Draco thought he might've known.

"I won't," Potter said solemnly, and Draco wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that he'd always have the Saviour at his side, to hide behind, to fall into.

"Draco?"

He started, thinking Potter had abruptly sobered, which was at this point impossible without a heavy dose of whatever Severus kept locked away along with his best wine that Draco often stole sips of, but Potter had just slipped into another drunken reality, less house elfish but nevertheless hazed and heavy.

"Yes, Potter?" he sighed, ready to find a way out of the bathroom and into a bed, nightmares or not.

"I…have to tell you…ask you…" Potter was chewing on his bottom lip, in an internal debate with himself, one part pissed, the other sobered and damnably determined.

Draco did not what to talk, as Potter had so demanded before Draco had banished him to the kitchens. Draco wanted to sleep and forget and maybe get his hands on one of those bottles the house elf had found.

He was never going to talk to Potter about whatever made his voice have such an edge.

"No, you don't." he said flatly, making to get up.

"No! I do!" Potter cried desperately, latching onto Draco more firmly.

"I don't; want to talk Potter, I want to sleep."

"Wait, no, I have to—"

"Just toss off, Potter."

He obeyed.

It was hesitant, but it happened. Draco very nearly didn't see it in his rush to leave, before he caught sight of Potter's suddenly flushed face, his lip being tortured by white teeth again as Potter's unsteady hands worked at the button of his jeans.

Draco's mouth went dry, hanging open as if to say something, but his mind was a short-circuited mess when he saw the first glimpse of Potter's pants.

Because they weren't Potter's—they were his.

His silken, monogrammed mint green boxers he'd plopped into Potter's hand—an action that had been rewarded with a punch to the face—were suddenly straining to contain Potter's erect cock. It was a thought that sent shivers straight to his own developing erection and kept him there, kneeling on the floor of a bathroom, gobsmacked as he watched Potter obediently, feverishly, deliciously toss himself off.

Draco watched every shift; every twist of the tight grip of his Quidditch-callused hands on Potter's revealed cock. His breath caught as Potter's did, fluttering out as a soft moan as he wished he were doing more than watching.

Then he realized he could.

It was clumsy, there was no grace as he might've liked, but Potter was pissed off his arse and he was desperate, so he didn't care as he dove for the Gryffindor bodily, teeth clacking together as mouths met and hands tangling in clothes before Draco's searching grasp found its quarry. Potter's cock was as better to touch than to look at, and Draco could only imagine how it might taste. He hadn't even dared to do more than wrap his hand around it and he was in danger of coming in his trousers already.

Potter didn't seem merely satisfied with this tentative grasp as he bucked, his entire body searching for friction and contact that Draco shamelessly supplied, pressing himself as close as possible and ruthlessly tugging on Potter's throbbing cock. Potter gasped in his ear before biting it, the feel and his hands drifting down his back with an electric touch, eventually settling with kneading, needy hands on his arse.

He muffled another moan into Potter's neck where he tasted it, no doubt leaving a love bite for the entire world to see, because Potter was his, his and only his.

Potter, his house elf.

Potter, the Boy He Messed With.

Potter, his Saviour.

Potter, who'd just vanished his clothes, pushing him back to straddle his naked thighs and ravish him with his mouth, sucking, licking, biting.

Draco could only mewl his appreciation as he writhed beneath Potter, keeping a determined hold on Potter's cock. Potter's lips were moving over his chest, hungry and laced with the taste of Firewhisky, sending fiery sparks through Draco whenever they brushed over Draco's nipples. He squirmed and wriggled, trying to make Potter read his mind and wishes as he had before.

But Potter knew what he really wanted.

Draco stilled entirely when he found his cock brushing that back of Potter's throat.

And then he couldn't stop moving, Potter had to use a hand to keep his hips from thrusting off the cold tiled floor and driving his cock impossibly deep into his mouth. Draco was absolutely positive that Potter was indeed reading his mind, his tongue doing just the right things to make his toes curls, blasphemies belting out from his slack jaw as that went warmth sucked and lapped with a force that left him begging in between the _fuck_s and _oh Potter!_s. His suspicions were only affirmed when a finger teased his puckered hole, slick with saliva and pressing. When it pushed past, Draco readily impaled himself on it, demanding the second that was swiftly supplied. Draco reveled in the burn of being stretched, or maybe it was just the Ogden's.

The burn and the sparks those curling fingers found, along with Potter's fucking amazing mouth, licked away at the short fuse of his orgasm and soon he was coming for what felt like ages straight down Potter's throat, vaguely aware that Potter was drinking it as if it was ages old, priceless Ogden's Best Firewhisky.

Then everything was just as tiring as it had been moments before, the short burst of energy and lust lulled into a tender languor. Potter went limp and for a second Draco thought he'd fallen asleep with Draco's flaccid cock in his mouth, but he dragged himself up with a slurping _pop_ that was enough to make even his spent cock twitch in interest. The Gryffindor then gave him a smile, smeared with come and yet the sweetest thing Draco had ever seen, as he shrugged out of his robes and gently rolled Draco onto them.

There must have been some magic involved, because Draco felt that he was lying on a mattress, warm and soft rather than a bathroom floor, cold and hard. He also felt no desire to protest when Potter wrapped him in a smothering embrace, sighing contently and settling down to sleep, his hands still carding through and mussing his hair. Only a spell could keep him from commenting on such Hufflepuffish behavior from the bravest lion of Gryffindor.

He couldn't make himself complain though, being so damn comfortable, being so close to that rest, that sleep without nightmares, the one he so needed after the night he'd had, so he moved closer and planted a smirking kiss to Potter's temple.

The mysterious magic of the curse that bound Potter to him had granted him what he wanted and needed that night, Potter's gaze and the bliss and protection they gave him, keeping the terrors and Madam Pomfrey at bay. He found himself not lost in the dark, but in their verdant depths, floating on an oblivious river of something that wasn't quite drunkenness, but close to it, all irrational thoughts and mad urges.

But even there, the worries existed, lurking and waiting for the harsh light of morning to pounce. Those worries came in the form of a sober Potter, filled up with morals and stubbornness and the unshakable need to talk.

But Draco had no desire to talk about whatever took the sparkle from Potter's eyes and put such an edge to his voice.

Draco, for the second time that night, had the most sinking feeling; this time that there wouldn't be so much speaking as there would be shouting, maybe even curses flung.

When Potter awoke to find his cheek pressed against a Dark Mark, that is.

~o0o~

**A/N~ Again, sorry for the wait. Reality seems to hate writers and the schedule they try to set.**

** Thanks for reading, please review!**


	10. Plucked

Plucked

Harry woke, a slow, hesitant affair because there was an insistent ache crawling about his body along with the niggling suspicion that if he dared to move, he'd be very sorry.

Sorry for he knew a headache was ready to bloom in the blinding light of morning, and because he was very comfortable as it was for the moment, curled up against another body, gentle breath on his face, one of his hands feeling the rise and fall of the body's chest.

Draco's body.

There was an odd pang through the curse when he thought of the name, as if he'd said something uncouth, he frowned, why ever would that be?

_Not Draco, _Master.

It was then that the happenings of the night before ruthlessly flooded back and his head burst with pain. He groaned and flushed when he remembered how much moaning and groaning there had been at a time that seemed ages ago, blurred and unreal, Firewhisky's drunken haze distorting the memories.

He felt the chuckle, more than heard it, and groaned again.

He certainly didn't want to open his eyes now, the threat of the sun's blade-like shafts of light paled in comparison to the look he couldn't bare to imagine on Draco's face, all smug smirks and dark looks. That damn Slytherin. He was only glad that that damn Slytherin was once again clothed or else Harry would have been all too tempted to open his eyes.

"Is there any way I can convince you to Obliviate yourself?" Harry sighed.

"Absolutely not. In fact, I think I'll store up all of last night in a Pensive for safe-keeping."

Harry buried his flushing face further into Draco's forearm, feeling the Slytherin stiffen, breath held and body almost poised to spring. Harry sighed again and shook his head, which made his head hurt even worse, jarring his thoughts so he could think past the throb at his temples, not when he was hung-over and snuggled up next to the impossible, the ever rumored shameless and unshakable Draco Malfoy, guilty and nervous because he thought his arch enemy hadn't enjoyed their illicit activities of the night before.

The world was a very different place after you found yourself in so many unexpected situations.

"I was pissed, it's not your fault," Harry began, "I'm sor—"

"Potter, haven't we had a discussion about apologies and not meaning them before?" Draco said firmly, and Harry could imagine the stern scowl on his face, "As I recall, we have. So shut your mouth."

"But I don't—"

"Trust you to be a proper Gryffindor and apologize for something that was my fault." Harry could now hear the smirk, purring and superior. He growled and persisted.

"I completely lost it last night."

"As did I, right down your throat."

That stopped Harry's argument dead, burned away by the blush on his face and the heated lust that curled in his stomach at the memory. They had indeed both lost all sense last night, and the only thing to blame was alcohol and teenage hormones, things that neither could overcome nor ever hope to control. Not to mention the curse, which was still humming pleasantly, like a mollified beast, happy to be by its master's side, happy to have carried out master's orders so dutifully last night.

What orders?

Well, there had been the silly ones, dog's tricks and the like, which Harry was sure he wouldn't hear the end of. He couldn't believe he'd been rolling about, smiling stupidly like a loyal mutt on a dirty bathroom floor.

A dirty bathroom floor that he didn't know existed, but evidently the house elf part of him did. The curse had been more dominate than ever, Apparating them on his master's unspoken orders, whispered from his very heart's desires on subconscious strings into the curse, invisible links neither knew existed nor, like hormones and alcohol, could ever hope to control.

It'd been like a song Harry couldn't remember the tune to, little snatches of lyrics working their way through his fuzzy recollections; the bath Draco so desired and he'd found for him, the comfort he needed and Harry had promptly supplied in the only way he knew how to, the lust that had to be sated, which Harry was proud to say he'd more than satisfied.

But then there was the terror, dark and thick, dripping off their link like blood, which had to be quelled as well. Harry had done all he could, but he couldn't obey that order, for even now the twitchings of the curse told him it still lurked, hiding and waiting in the darkness, a patient predator that stalked its quarry when it was alone, far away from comforting arms, with claws and high-pitched cackling and curses, its name a hiss and flash of red eyes,

_"Crucio!"_

The danger. The danger Harry had been ordered to protect his master from with his life, the danger that he _knew _was there, was always there, that tormenting and painful and inexpressibly bad thing, that shadowed Draco's eyes and quivered through his hands, catching in his throat, carefully hidden behind smirks and sneers.

"Draco," Harry's voice was just as unsteady and hoarse as his master's had been the night before, "Tell me again everything that happened last night."

"Again with the kinks Potter. You like dirty talk, yeah? Well then, you—"

As loathe as he was to do it, because Harry may just indeed have a kink for Draco's smooth, drawling voice telling him all sorts of inappropriate things, he cut him off, forcing himself to be firm and not think about how firm other things would be feeling after a few minutes listening to—

"No, I mean, before…that." Harry could feel Draco physically recoil from his tone, so Harry rubbed his hand down Draco's ribs, glad to find that it was enough to placate the Slytherin as he spoke, his low voice painting images on the blackness of Harry's shut eyes.

"Right then, I ran into you, all out of sorts and pissed off your arse."

"Where were you before that?" Harry asked, nearly opening his eyes to the silence he was answered with, the hitch of Draco's breath and the tensing of the arm beneath him.

"Pansy needed me for something. Clothes and make up and such, figuring that I was enough of a ponce to help. She was sorely mistake." Draco replied, a few moments too late, the smirk artificial in his voice, the smallest of falters alerting Harry to a lie, effortless and ineffective against the ties of the curse and Harry's own determination.

"Why did you want a bath so badly?"

"The awful make up and powders Pansy left on my hands." He answered more swiftly, an entire tale of an evening with Pansy Parkinson forcing perfumes and lipsticks on him no doubt coming to life in his clever mind, but Harry knew it wasn't the truth, for one reason above all else.

"You were so scared."

There was something different about the quiet that followed, it was not tight and tense with the pressing of lies and walls and excuses, it was weightless, punctuated by a single, long exhale that smelled like mint and defeat, maybe even a tentative relief, but it was waiting, reluctant. Scared.

"Yeah,"

"Why?"

Harry knew better than to ask something like that, not to an untrusting, prideful Slytherin that had been reduced to a terrified young boy, so naturally he didn't expect to be answered with anything more than a sneer or a non-answer, but then, the unexpected happened.

"It hurts."

Harry should have been confused, he should have asked what hurt, been concerned and thought of the hospital wing or any other host of things, but instead something irrational, something faded and frayed but nevertheless there, plucked a quiet melody within him, the remnants of an order and the volition of his own heart strings brought him to turn his head and kiss Draco's forearm.

Kiss the pain better.

Then, he opened his eyes and was he hurt in turn, not by the harsh light of morning, but by something very, very dark.

A Dark Mark, stained black across a pale forearm.

And it hurt when he sat up sharply, his headache protesting violently, but it was the look on Draco's face that struck deeper, the momentary flash of everything he'd been hiding, raw fear, shame, pain, the danger pouncing, the danger that Harry was supposed to protect him from, protect the whole bloody world from; the horrors of Voldemort.

However, did Harry want to shield Draco from something he'd voluntarily thrown himself into?

No, Harry didn't want to, Harry didn't want to obey the curse, he didn't want to be tied and tangled up with another evil, but most of all, he didn't want Ginny to be right.

But she was.

"Harry," the soft voice broke through his thoughts and he realized he was standing, his hand clutching for his wand that wasn't there. Draco was unsteadily rising from the ground, the Dark Mark grotesquely lucid in the muted light of the bathroom. Draco's eyes were as guarded as ever as he reached toward Harry with a long fingered hand, as if to grab his chin as he so often did.

"There was blood on your hands last night." Harry swallowed, thoughts working furiously as he felt increasingly sick. He'd kissed lips that had likely been pressed to Voldemort's robes, he'd held hands that might have wrung life from innocents, and he'd loved a voice that may have sent more than one person to their death. He felt disgusted and horrified and…sorry, profoundly, achingly sorry.

But betrayal has a cold blade, and it made his heart icy and voice just as frozen.

"You're a murderer, aren't you?" he watched Draco flinch and shuffle backward as if to escape the biting wind of Harry glare, which watched him unwaveringly.

"Harry, I—it wasn't as if, damn it, I can't—" He was ineloquent and bumbling over his words, so much unlike his normal Draco—no, Harry didn't have a Draco, he had a master, just like Draco.

Draco had had him all along, fooled and oblivious and under a spell. A perfect gift to present to his beloved Dark Lord indeed.

"You're a murderer and a Death Eater." Harry voice was shaking now, the cool cracking.

Draco didn't say anything, an acquiescence that lurched in Harry's stomach, visions ripping unbidden through his head; that soft skin splashed with blood, the mask of a Death Eater covering his handsome face, and green light illuminating those grey eyes. There was a screeching through the curse, a ringing in his ears and he felt as if he'd never be able to hear music again, hear that drawling voice the same way, it'd always be replaced with a high-pitched laugh and the hiss of a curse.

"Harry,"

He shattered.

There was no thinking about the ramifications for his actions later on, or the fact that he was unarmed and alone with a Death Eater he was bound to, or anything else for that matter as he strode forward and shoved Draco halfway across the room.

He landed bodily on the floor and peered up at Harry through the curtain of his fringe, looking younger than ever, before he hardened, aged, a phantom of that hurt and frightened boy.

"For once Potter, it appears that you've made a correct deduction without the help of your dear Mudblood." He hissed, and Harry wanted to punch the cold haughtiness off his pointed face and he found himself dragging Draco to his feet to do just that.

"Going to slap me again?" he hissed, and Harry blinked, "You're so predictable, Potter. I know your every move, and I know just how to…"

His slender fingers wrapped around Harry's wrists, short nails drawing blood as he punctuated each word with a scrape, "Get. Under. Your. Skin."

Harry pushed him away with a snarl, finding no satisfaction as he heard the blonde's head crack against the tiled wall, only that twanging pluck of concern that was surely the damned curse's fault.

"Well look at you," Harry thundered, "Who would have guessed that Draco Malfoy would have followed in his daddy's footsteps to become a Death Eater? What a coincidence!"

"Is it any different from what you do, oh Saviour? Admit that you've never done anything the world hadn't already expected you to do."

"I did," Harry's voice was suddenly quiet, his throat raw and head fit to split open, Draco's eyes fixed to him, Harry's own stare boring into the Dark Mark that seemed to laugh at him, Ginny's laugh, the 'I told you so's he was sure to get, mockery.

"I trusted you,"

This was a quiet he knew, the silence he was faced with when Draco's volatile mood was shifting, likely to something violent when he caught Harry watching him, witness to the rare moment that his eyes got so bright and his hands worked themselves into fists and a sound in his throat was silenced.

The sound of a sob that was quickly turned to a scream.

"Bow down, Potter," Draco shouted, his voice drilling into Harry's aching mind and yanking ruthlessly on the curse, "Get on your knees and _grovel_ at the feet of your Master like I have to."

Harry's knees cracked loudly on the floor as the curse threw him down, his spine twisting and forcing his face into the grimy ground. All the while he listened to the blood pounding in his ears, the receding sound of it, the dangerous sigh of cooling anger. He couldn't stop being angry, if he did that then other feelings would slip in, feelings he didn't want to face, things much deeper than the blade he felt was protruding from his back.

He listened to the slap of Draco's bare feet approaching him, firm, hard, undeniably _angry_ steps that Harry was sure would soon be kicking him in the face, or gut, or other more tender areas.

Really, he should have known what would happen next, but it still stole the breath from him as a familiar hand buried itself in his hair and yanked him up none too gently, finding himself panting in the face of the ice mask, ineffectually trying to tear his eyes away from the ones that pinned him down and made him feel—feel like—

Just feel far too much.

"You're not going to tell anyone about this, or you'll find yourself a crumpled mess at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower."

The order was toneless, but violently binding, the collar of servitude about Harry's neck tightening like a noose, twining in his vocal cords and promising that if any small whisper would to be uttered, there would be blood. Lots of it.

Harry was almost glad for it, the order, not the blood. How could he go on, carrying the secret that Draco Malfoy, the boy he'd been flirting with relentlessly was a Death Eater? How could he look Ron or Hermione or Ginny in the eye after they'd done their gasping and 'I told you so's? How could he watch as Dumbledore sent Draco away in shackles, flanked by Dementors to join his father in Azkaban?

He couldn't, and now he wouldn't have to.

So Harry's silence was acquiescence, an unspoken _yes Master_, which Draco heard nevertheless, nodding to himself, his piercing gaze dropped along with the painful hand in Harry's hair, releasing him to stumble to the floor with a sharp twist to his ankle that almost made him cry out.

And Harry stayed in the silence, trying to gather the last bits of smoldering fury and failing, their power snuffed out by something colder, rather wet and maybe even salty, even if Harry's eyes were dry behind his glasses, it was welling up, filling his chest and threatening to spill with watery demands and accusations and perhaps even a few pleas that Harry would never admit to having.

But a single something spilled past his lips, without tears, with the last shard of the coolness he'd formerly possessed, something he had to know, he had to question,

"Why? Why aren't you going to kill me? Why haven't you been trying?"

It was something anyone would have asked in his situation, but the way Draco looked back at him, something flickering in his eyes, it was as if he'd asked something very different.

Perhaps he had.

"Because," softly came the reply, thoughtful, almost as if Draco was speaking to himself rather than Harry, "I expected it to be the same."

And then Harry was alone, but without any Firewhisky to drench himself in or even a house elf to confide in, alone with only his worsening migraine and the smothering hold of the curse that was raking itself along his insides in displeasure, the beast awakened and infuriated by the all the acidic ill will toward its master.

Because Harry felt absolutely sick, sick toward Draco, sick toward himself, the tears he suppressed and the blood boiling in his veins settling and simmering in his emptied cauldron of a chest. He wanted to break down and vomit and cry and scream until he couldn't anymore, and by all means he was in the proper setting to do so, an abandoned bathroom where no one could hear him or find him, but he didn't.

After all, he never did when he was feeling such hatred for Voldemort.

That was the most frustrating part, perhaps it was the curse's doing, but he simply couldn't bring himself to hate Draco as he so wanted to right then, as he should. Yes, he was bloody _furious_ with that ferrety, traitor of a snake, but he didn't hate him. He was hurt, he was betrayed, and he was just sick.

Terminally so, it seemed.

~o0o~

That sick feeling lingered with Harry, threatening to boil over at times as he made his slow, limping way back to Gryffindor Tower, each step felt like the long strides he had taken up the hill at a time that seemed ages ago, his heart nervous and head knowing very well that what he was doing made no sense whatsoever. It felt like that now, only now his head was making perfect sense, but his heart, well that was an achingly matter.

It had to have been sometime in the wee hours of the morning, not a glimmer of the sunrise yet to shine on the dark horizon out the snow dusted windows. He felt very naked traipsing about so late without his Cloak or the Marauder's Map, although he wasn't sure how much he'd react at the moment if Filch were to spring from around a corner.

Harry felt dangerous and unstable, like one of Neville's potions, because he couldn't decide if he wanted to break something, or if he was going to himself, both emotionally and physically.

He muttered the password to a half asleep Fat Lady and stumbled into the warmth of the common room, wanting to melt into one of its cushy chairs and sleep until that cauldron in his chest stopped boiling and cooled, when his head and heart made some sort of agreement or truce.

It was his head this time that argued that that would never happen.

Evidently he'd never get the rest he so desired at the moment either, not with the infuriatingly stubborn stance Ginny had as she leaned on the back of a loveseat and glared at him.

"Where have you been?"

Harry had to literally bite his tongue to keep from retorting, "To hell in back!" It very much felt like it after all, that hell being an awful awakening in a filthy bathroom.

He didn't say anything however, tongue stinging and blood boiling, wishing he could just push past her and escape into the boys' dormitory, but knowing her, she'd merely chase after him and wake the whole house with her questions and wild, if not accurate, speculations.

Harry _hated _that she was right.

She no doubt _loved_ it, even though it hurt Harry so much.

"Well, Harry?" she demanded, foot tapping.

"What's it to you?" he finally groused, shifting further unto the carpet.

"What's it to me?" she hissed shrilly, before her voice went soft, "Harry, I _care_. You're important to me."

Harry just felt worse, listening to her quiet voice and craving another smooth sound, saying the same words even though he'd dismiss them with a sardonic wave of the hand as 'Hufflepuffish'.

"Harry,"

Merlin, why had Draco used his given name like that? Did the cunning git know what it did to him? How that soft, breaking plea drew across his heart strings like a violin bow? Maybe he did or didn't, but the effect remained.

"Something happened, didn't it?" Ginny's eyes had that mad light again, "You got pissed, didn't you?"

"I'm sober now, that's for sure." He mumbled.

"What happened when you were drunk? You didn't drink both bottles of Firewhisky did you? Those are hard to get! One of a kind maybe!" she admonished, stepping forward quickly, and scrutinizing him.

"No, I didn't but they won't last long with Winky," he growled, "I'm fine; just let me go to bed now."

Ginny was still in front of him and Harry froze, fearing one of her failing tactics to seduce him, drawing up all close and cozy and looking up coyly, it'd happened more than once and just got more and more awkward each time she was left standing there while Harry sidled away.

But this time she never looked up, he gaze locked, not coy but horrified at Harry's neck. At the love bite Draco had left.

Harry had the strangest sense of déjà vu, like looking in a backward mirror and he realized this had happened before, not so long ago, with himself playing Ginny's part, face twisted with a similar disgust at a different mark, a darker one, but something that meant almost just as much.

"Ginny—" he began, a sinking pit in his stomach knowing that this was how Draco had felt.

It wasn't a very good feeling.

"Harry, you—" she sputtered, mouth working without words, mouthing things Harry didn't want to know, "I can't believe—even after—"

"Ginny, please," he groaned, aware that there was no way to explain himself, no way to keep her from throwing a fit anyway.

"Harry," she said, flat cold, tone like an icicle that was ready to run him through, "You got drunk and went and shagged Malfoy, didn't you?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"So you were sober then?"

"No! But—"

"Then he took advantage of you, didn't he? I told you! He uses people, didn't I—"

"Yeah, he does. Alright? He does." His voice was broken, and he felt like he was trying to convince his heart all over again. "I'd like to know _why_ but fuck, Ginny."

He shoved past her, knowing how near the tears were, thankful for how close a pillow he could scream into was.

She just watched him storm away, her eyes gone soft and worried again, her voice just as much when she said almost inaudibly,

"He's doing something in the Room of Requirement."

Harry paused, the curious part of him perking up before it was quashed by feeling, far, far too much feeling to be doing any snooping.

By the time he got into bed, he'd forgotten what Ginny had said, exhaustion dragging him into a sleep where there were only sneers and green light, along with the occasional flicker of December sky grey that he could never find again no matter how hard he looked.

~o0o~

Draco should have expected it, Merlin knows those few waking moments before Harry woke he'd thought of it, brooded on it, feared it, and yet it still felt like a shocking blow to the gut, a punch to the face, a burst of magic he hadn't been expecting at all.

Why would he foolishly assume that Harry bloody Potter, poster boy for the Light and Boy Who Lived would react with anything more than disgust and fury when Draco Malfoy revealed himself a Death Eater?

He almost assumed Harry to already know, that crooning, comforting, limitless power of the curse whispering his darkest secret to him and Harry had miraculously accepted it, maybe pitied him for it. But it was only guesses any feeling fool could deduce and Draco's own reckless decision to bare the Dark Mark to and hope for the best that tore away his disguise he'd made for himself.

Since when had he been so hopeful, for anything?

It was because something had changed, hadn't it? Some dramatic shift in the world had taken place the moment he'd allowed himself to flirt with Harry. The rules of the universe had been rewritten when he'd kissed him. It seemed that way anyway, and he'd been so convinced of this that when the world, unchanged and unforgiving, came crashing down around him, he'd been shocked, surprised, and very hurt.

He'd found the only thing that changed was that Potter inexplicably became Harry and that trying to explain something in the face of a livid Gryffindor was a lost cause.

Of course, Draco had started to explain, having planned to do so calmly, clinically, tell him all about Dumbledore's deal and leave out all the unpleasant, gory details he had to live with, but then everything, much like the world, had crashed, fallen, shattered.

It was because he saw the revulsion in Harry's beautiful green eyes, it was something he'd see nearly every night in the mirror, but that didn't make it any less cutting. And then finally Harry had said it, a truth so black that it showed through Draco's pale skin, graying it and darkening his eyes, robbing him of sleep and the much taken for granted feeling of being clean.

He was a murderer and there was no denying that, no atonement, no excuse. He'd indeed had blood on his hands that night and every night prior and every night following, it wouldn't wash away not even under his Saviour's touch.

Then there were no explanations to be given, because everything had gone so cold, unlike the tears that now threatened to prick at his eyes. He'd spoken the truth, harsh and bitter and tearing itself from his throat uncensored and irrevocable and Harry had matched him with as much scornful realities and won whatever war they'd been waging, even if Harry was the one trembling and bowed on a dirty bathroom floor.

He'd never be as tainted as Draco was, after all.

But there was one thing Draco was more than stained and stupid, he was wrong.

He'd been exceptionally wrong to be truthful and trusting, wrong to expect any understanding from Harry, and wrong to expect it'd be the same, to think he wouldn't care when the boy who had scowled, cursed, even hated him started to hate him all over again.

It had taken him six very thoughtful showers to somewhat come to terms with this, only somewhat because there was something irritable and irrational fluttering about his chest like a mad owl in those rare moments he could think of Harry and not hurt. It was quickly shot down by his morbidly sane and resigned mind, but the stupid thing was resilient and came twittering about when he allowed his mind to wander somewhere that didn't threaten to prick at his eyes and set a heavy weight in his chest, something he wouldn't admit to being the most broken, unwelcome sob still trying to drag him into further, excruciating feeling.

It was when he had to use a seventh charm to heat the water in the shower after that long day of trying to deny the existence of the green-eyed boy that walked the same corridors he decided he was going to do something.

Something that escaladed into something else that involved smashing things

"What do you mean, it's been taken? You'd really just give something like that away? I doubt it," Draco shouted, his voice louder than it'd been all day, sparingly used only to mumble irritated things to Blaise and Pansy's concern. Now he was far more than annoyed with the sniveling excuse of an elf that took shelter beneath a table from the shattering of anything Draco could get his hands on.

Draco had come down to the kitchens to claim the age-old Ogden's Best Firewhisky that Winky had found in the Room of Lost Things, but discovered that it was lost all over again. That's when something heated inside him and he simply _had_ to destroy something. Luckily for him, the empty kitchens were filled with breakable goods.

"He comes and he takes it, Master Malfoy, Winky is cannot be denying him." she wailed, squeak of a voice echoing above the din of clanging pots and swears from Draco.

"Why hadn't you downed it all in the first place?" Draco snarled, beyond reason and ready to sate his thirst with blood if it would get him out of the terribly wide, terribly echoing, terribly cold place his mind had become over the past day. He wanted the Firewhisky to burn the barren fields there, not wine that just made him colder. He wanted some safe, furious feeling rather than anymore numbness.

"Rumored should be saved, she says," Winky replied miserably as Draco crunched a tea cup under foot, chest heaving, but the savage desire to destroy ebbing away, his tantrum coming to the lonely, miserable close it always did.

"Well it wasn't, now was it?" Draco sighed, "Who has it then?"

"Her friend,"

"Who?"

"Master Nott."

That momentary warmth of anger flared again. Of course, who else would deny Draco any escape from the fate that hung heavy on his shoulders? Theodore-Death-Eater-Fucking-Wannabe-Nott.

"Fucking fantastic," Draco muttered, sweeping out of the kitchens as glass tinkled under his strides and saucepans were kicked away with a clang, all punctuated by the lone house elf's snuffling, "Bloody brilliant."

He clambered out into the corridor, not caring about the mess he'd left for the house elves. He'd done worse before in the midst of a tantrum after all, and it was only house elf magic that could ever properly restore whatever he'd taken out his feelings on.

"Such foul language, Draco."

Draco whipped round at the purr of the silkily sarcastic voice he knew so well, watching as his godfather detached himself from the shadows that so naturally cloaked him. He was a true spy, unshakable and unreadable, a mere shadow himself, unlike Draco, a sniveling beacon of weakness that could never master the mask Severus had.

"Such a blank look as well, if I weren't sure it was you, I'd say a Weasley had broken into my stores of Polyjuice."

Severus came to stand before him, and Draco saw that small glitter of understanding, like some distant constellation in the night sky of his black eyes. It was that glitter that likely allowed him to nick temporary cures from nightmares and feeling from his precious wine stores, Draco knew that so sharp a man wouldn't not miss a sixth year nicking wine with a few third year level spells.

"Is it a Weasley that has you so entranced? Because just last week I would have said it was a Potter."

Draco blinked and gaped dumbly up at the Potions master, the man was deadly sharp, obviously, and though the rest of the school had indeed taken both notice and interest in he and Harry's chumming about, he'd have never thought even Severus to see something Draco was only half sure ever existed.

"I've no idea what you mean," Draco retorted adamantly, in vain, he knew.

"I'm insulted." Severus replied simply, "Come now, it's written all over your blank face."

Draco lapsed into a stubborn silence, but Severus read his every blink as an answer it seemed and sneered mildly.

"I thought you were smarter than that, had better taste in the least," it was Draco's turn to sneer defensively, feeling foolish and angry at himself for still defending Harry and that mess of hair of his.

Severus only graced him a dry look and a small shake of the head.

"Must be from Potter you've gotten so…" he trailed off and Draco bit back a growl, realizing bitterly that his godfather could mean any number of things; oblivious, soft, Gryffindorish, smitten, hopeful, stupid, hurt…

"Well as you've evidently haven't noticed, you two have Dumbledore's blessing,"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Draco demanded, the thought of that old codger furthering his frustration, it was his fault Draco had stumbled into this mess more than even Granger's, leaving a sixth year to sort through the library and ineffective theories when he could so easily draw upon innumerable sources to fix the curse with a flick of a wand.

"If you're asking that then I suppose you haven't noticed how all your tyrannical little orders and most of you and Potter's skirmishes go unnoticed under the all seeing eyes of the great Albus Dumbledore and even his little pet Minerva McGonagall?"

Draco paused to ponder this, eyes widening with each recollection of each detention-worthy happening under the noses of the few staff members that knew of the hold Draco possessed over Harry.

Of course it was that manipulative bastard again, what wouldn't he involve himself in for his perfect chess pieces? Draco couldn't fathom what the Headmaster could possibly gain for turning the other cheek when he and Harry snogged in empty rooms, but he didn't trust it at all.

Even if he was the smallest, tiny bit thankful he did.

"Lovely," was all Draco had to say to Severus' expectant stare, and he only raised a dark brow.

Quiet reigned over them as his godfather no doubt read everything Draco was thinking with a skill that went beyond Legilimency, a magic only the observant, glaring gaze of Severus Snape had. Draco didn't much care if his mind was being invaded, it already had been before, mercilessly by the Dark Lord's horrors, and just as ruthlessly by a certain Harry Potter, the latter the most difficult to expel from his thoughts, even with a hefty glass of Firewhisky.

He'd soon find out if he could, however.

As if reading his mind (which he probably was) Severus frowned and turned to billow away and Draco followed suit, a small dread rising in his stomach at the thought of facing Nott, accompanied by bile when he thought of the other Slytherin's shameless lust for the name Death Eater to be his own.

Something else, suspicion, reared itself as well when he heard the soft voice of his godfather carry down the corridor.

"I'd beware the Weasleys for now; one may do a bit more than entrancing if you don't tread carefully."

Draco felt more than ever the apparent obliviousness that Harry had given him was not a safe haven to hide from his own nightmares, but a blindfold that was leading him to neglect to see something, a monster far fiercer than even the Cruciatus.

Even so, the Cruciatus Curse had never been so cold, never taken the form of a disgusted green-eyed boy, and never had it been so painful.

Draco had never wanted it so badly.

~o0o~

**A/N~ As many of us have, I've been having technical errors, but luckily for me an angel in the form of a certain person (who believes that smiles make everthing better) *Wink nudge* helped me out. Thanks loads!**

**And a big OMG YOU'RE AWESOME! to a reviewer by the name of **Nali-Blunt**. :D**

**Sorry for the wait! Thanks for reading, please review!**


	11. Hanged

Hanged

Harry's headache never went away, neither did the guilt, nor did the noose he felt was hanging from his neck, dragging him down was slowly, inexorably tightening, squeezing the life from him.

Or was it a pair of slender fingered hands curled about his neck, leaching the life from him with their firm, demanding grip?

Harry knew that wasn't right, because it wasn't Draco's hands that haunted him, not even his voice, that last echoing command binding him to silence, but it was his eyes, those grey, stormy eyes as dead and cold as they'd been at the beginning of the year. Every nearly caught glance of those eyes made him feel dizzy, like his air supply had been quickly and efficiently siphoned off in one deadly tug by that dreadful noose. Harry didn't want to know what would happen if he were to meet Draco's eyes now, especially because there was a dangerous stirring in that cauldron in his chest beneath the breathlessness.

But he was saved from whatever the cauldron had cooked up for him as it fermented in suppressed feelings because Draco wouldn't look at him, his gaze slipping effortlessly by as if Harry was just the phantom of a mistake.

And that hurt quite a bit.

Harry found it hard to look at Draco, wounds both emotional and physical still fresh after a day, though that day had been unbearably long and difficult to get through without doing _something,_ something that was likely hurting someone or himself.

If there was anyone Harry wanted to hurt, it was not the pale boy who so easily crushed him with the denial of a passing glance, but the Slytherin that Draco had deemed suddenly worthy of his stares.

Theodore Nott had a permanent look of _sulk _about him, although that eternal sullenness seemed to lighten to smugness under Draco surreptitious stares. One eye always covered by his dark brown hair that curled down his neck, while the other gazed despondently forward or darted shiftily to where Draco sat with Parkinson and Zabini.

In short, he was very much a brooding, scheming Slytherin. Admittedly, the only evil that was essential to a proper snake's reputation Harry had heard of was an incident in fifth year with an illegal potion trade, which wasn't much at all considering the first year Hufflepuff that had been caught doing the same. But Harry didn't like him. He didn't like how easily he dismissed Draco, didn't like the scowl on Draco's face when this happened.

He was scowling just then, brows furrowed and lips down-turned, the lines between his platinum eye brows visible from even across the Great Hall, making Harry pause in the act of buttering his toast as he found himself count each little wrinkle, each and every worry…

"…yeah, mate?"

Harry tore his gaze away guiltily and smiled sheepishly at Ron, who only frowned and Harry knew each little concern that lined his freckled face; Hermione's manic research keeping her up into the wee hours of the night, his own falling marks because of Hermione's refusal to let him copy her homework, Ginny's wanderings into 'the wrong lot', and Harry's own troubles.

"Alright, Harry?" he asked softly, eyes flickering to Hermione, who was thoroughly engrossed in a book, her breakfast worryingly untouched.

"Yeah, just…you know," Harry sighed.

And Ron did know, not much, but even he had an inkling as to what may have transpired between him and Draco the night Harry hadn't returned to the dorms. Ron, being Ron, had been embarrassed as hell when Harry he found Harry sprawled across his bed still clothed, obviously having slunk in not too long ago with what was unmistakably a love bite bright and bruised on his neck. He stuttered and turned eight different shades of red before catching sight of Harry's face, wan, stony and trying not to crumple and cry.

Than all awkwardness melted as he became the best friend Harry knew and loved, concerned, but not as prying and motherly as Hermione, he was that ear Harry could complain to without fear of lectures, the solid wall he could lean on until he composed himself.

"Alright, Harry?" was what he'd asked then after a few minutes of listening to Seamus' sleep mumblings and Neville's snores, they were the first to awake, and Harry felt as if he hadn't slept at all.

Harry didn't answer, couldn't find an answer other than a flat, no.

Seamus said something about Christmas pudding in his sleep and Harry rolled onto his back, heavy and weighted, the curse slithering beneath his skin, waiting for him to try to go against orders, tell Ron of the horror he'd witnessed that night.

"Was it Malfoy then?" Ron looked hesitant to ask this, but Harry felt a surge of gratitude when Ron smiled weakly. Hard as it was, near bloody impossible really, Ron was attempting to accept Harry's questionable taste in men, not to mention the fact that he had a taste in men.

"Yeah, it was,"

Seamus growled quietly about tiny umbrellas.

"Had a row?"

Harry loved how understanding Ron sounded and simply sighed, exhausted.

"Yeah,"

One hell of an earth-shattering row indeed.

Harry still hadn't slept well since then, the never ending search for grey jolting him awake when he found himself at a dead end or consumed by green light. Hermione had naturally noticed his fatigue, mothering glares sent his way every time his eyelids felt particularly heavy in class, but she never stopped to ask why, or tell him why, or spout her theories and concerns and hold some sort of intervention. This baffled Harry, and Ron who was being very polite to her for the moment, but Harry had a suspicion that something was going on, at least with the way that there was a tangible icy silence between Hermione and Ginny, the latter hadn't dared to do more than stare at him.

Harry was glad for this, but he almost wanted to talk to Ginny, if just to ask what she knew about what Draco was doing in the Room of Requirement. How did she even know? Could it have something to do with Death Eater business? Did she know Draco was a Death Eater?

No, she couldn't. Ginny would have gone straight to Dumbledore. She gained nothing from keeping a Slytherin's secret.

It was only Harry that was keeping a Slytherin's secret heavy in his chest, all tied up and knotted away with the curse's hold. He didn't gain anything from it but the peace of mind that Draco wasn't going to have his soul sucked away.

Yet.

He wanted to talk to Hermione too, see how far they were from ridding him of the curse, listen to some of her words of wisdom like he had when he'd slapped Draco, or perhaps just ask her if Azkaban had visiting hours.

He didn't want to imagine Draco, emaciated and hollow, huddled in the corner of a rough stone cell, nothing more than skin and bones and haunted grey eyes that stared at Harry without recognition or with a deep rancor as he tried to coax him up, hand offered through iron bars, but he did. Just as he'd envisioned Draco cloaked in Death Eater robes, the hood hiding his white-blonde hair, and the mask shielding is face as he said the incantation that would end Harry's life.

Harry really hated his imagination, but growing up with nothing more than spiders and blank walls to stare at, it flourished and twisted.

"Hermione, I think you should eat something or you'll run out of steam before lunch." Ron said tentatively and Harry perked up to watch as she slowly sat her book down, looking hesitant but resigned.

"I suppose you're right, Ron." She conceded simply and stirred her cereal glumly.

Ron smiled before turning to Harry and frowning.

"You too Harry, tuck in or you'll die before Snape can kill you in Potions this afternoon."

Harry managed a snort of a laugh before doing as he was told and biting into his toast, exchanging a long look with Hermione that made Harry feel like one of her books.

"Ginny, you haven't even touched your eggs, now come on, eat."

Hermione's gaze snapped away and looked sharply across the table at Ginny, who sat next to Ron and huffed at him.

"Don't act like Mum, Ron, it's annoying."

"What's annoying is how everyone's decided to stop eating! It's ridiculous!" he exclaimed, giving the lot of them an exasperated look that made them bite into their food more enthusiastically.

Ron heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, watching his admonished friends eat their breakfast with their distracted, dark stares.

"It's bloody confusing too, it is." He mumbled.

~o0o~

Draco really hated Nott, but that was a good thing because it gave that fire again, a small, fickly guttering flame, but it was more than that sorrowful, soggy coldness, like a rainy winter's day with harsh winds that sounded like Harry's disgust that presided in his mind.

Nott was just keeping the anger alive with the game of Let's Lord over Desperate Draco he was playing, all smirks and smugness and I-know-something-you-want-to-know-and-you'll-have-to-beg-for-me-to-tell-you.

Draco wondered how Harry could have ever put up with him because Draco liked to play the same game.

But he had, hadn't he? That had been a shock from the start of this nonsense and still was, although things seemed to be returning to the normality of the time before the curse and his daring bursts of reckless flirtation.

Draco thought he would have liked the normal, he'd often longed in those dull hours of the reign of Hermione Granger and her crack-pot theories. He found he wasn't so surprised that he didn't like the life he had before that time, aimless hours of gossip and more of worrying. And instead he missed when he could lounge in silence with Harry, listening without any real interest to Granger's mutterings. It was all comfort, the stuffy, embracing air of the library, the heat of Potter's stare and the lullaby of Granger's droning.

All that had soothed him into a dream, a dream where it could stay like that forever, where he could snog Harry Potter and forget that he was a Death Eater.

He'd finally been awakened from all that, and just in time according to Severus.

Draco had no idea as to why he should be wary of the Weasleys, although in all sense he should after everything he'd done. But the Weasel was glaring at him no more or less than usual and the Weaslette…well; there may be something there, something dangerous in her sharp, guarded stares.

Of course, like a great many of people she had good reason to glare at him, her more than anyone else. He'd hexed her boyfriend and stolen the boy she really wanted to hang off of, leaving her with Second-Best Goldstein. He'd also made Harry call her a slut, but she didn't know that.

Did she?

He wondered, mostly when his mind drifted off in the library, what would happen if someone were to find out about the hold he had on Harry. It could be something of a joke to those who hadn't any idea who Draco really was, what was lurking in the drawing room of his house. Rival turned slave. Hilarious, Draco would agree.

What wasn't so hilarious is what the thing that lurked in his drawing room might think. Draco shuddered violently, _he _could _never _find out. Draco knew very well what the Dark Lord would do to he and Potter and his imagination too easily supplied him gory, lucid images of just what unspeakable things they were.

Maybe the Weaslette did know about the curse, but at least she didn't know about that.

Only Harry and Severus truly knew.

Maybe Granger had told her about the curse for whatever reason; secrets were evidently a taboo amongst Gryffindors, after all. They were exchanging odd looks that the oblivious Weasley and the boy who he refused to look at may not notice, but Draco did.

Draco noticed a lot of things, how Harry slumped and stared and shuffled and worried on his bottom lip constantly, and Draco could only watch, anticipating when Harry decided to stop silencing himself with that awful habit and face him, face someone.

Draco was waiting for that, in reality he knew he was the one who had to face Harry, loathe as he was to admit, the Gryffindor was clever enough to find some loophole in the curse and slip through it, causing quite a bit of trouble in his usual brash and righteous way. Then there'd be a tedious amount of Memory Charms required to fix the mess Harry made and a stern conversation with Severus that Draco did not want to have. Severus was disappointed with him enough as it was; he didn't need to know that Draco had broken the first rule of a spy.

Trust no one.

Even their poster boy couldn't be trusted with the secret workings of the cause he fought for, truly he more than anyone else.

He chuckled darkly to himself, but it was quickly choked away as Nott passed by, smirking all over the half of his face that wasn't curtained in dark brown hair. Maybe it wasn't Harry he had to face just yet, but he did have to face Nott.

It wasn't simply about the Firewhisky, though Draco conceded he was getting a little desperate and frankly obsessive about the very idea of losing himself in the burn, just for a while. It was worrying, a worry he acknowledged on Blaise and Pansy's inquiring looks as he sauntered away from them during their free period, following the retreating figure of Nott's slouch as he descended into the dungeons.

"I was wondering when you'd come to grant me…a moment of your time." Nott announced to the empty common room as Draco slipped in behind him, he could see a sort of victory etched in Nott's arrogantly casual steps as he threw himself into a high backed chair, depositing his booted feet on the table.

There was a gleam, sinister and hungry, in the eye that watched Draco as he carefully took the seat before him. This was what else it was about. It was about the fact that Nott knew something.

What Draco knew about Nott, aside from his disgusting lust for the Dark Mark (and Terry Boot) was that he avoided trouble. He hadn't broken a rule since getting a few measly detentions for that potion trade, he always sneered quietly and kept his barbs to a harmless minimum, and he turned his homework in on time and got along reasonably well with his housemates and even those in Ravenclaw.

He wasn't one to sneak down to the kitchens to nick a good bottle of Firewhisky or two.

"You've my full attention then," Draco drawled, his face perfectly composed into boredom as if Nott had been the one to stalk him to the common room, "Just what do you want with this moment of my time?"

Nott's smirk faltered, he very obviously enjoyed having Draco under his power, and didn't enjoy it so much if he wasn't going to squirm and act like a Ravenclaw deprived of their precious knowledge.

"I only want to have a little chat with you, Draco," he said, "Let's just sit and drink and reminisce, shall we?"

Draco's eyes narrowed as Nott flicked his wand and a familiar, battered case came winging down from the dorms, but kept his face impassive as Nott gave another swish and poured them each a tumbler full of Firewhisky.

"Interesting," Draco murmured, making sure to not sound interested in the slightest, "Firewhisky? Really I imagined you to have milder tastes."

Nott looked positively evil as he smiled into his glass, "We all have our weaknesses, don't we?"

Draco glared and drowned a growl in a gulp of the amber liquid. He nearly winced as it burned its way down his throat, but started to feel pleasantly warmed as he gave another tentative sip in the silence that spanned between them, gazes locked and masks firmly donned.

"This is a curious brew," Draco said at last, "Old, a century at least. Where ever did you procure such a rarity?"

"A friend found it for me. There are a lot of secrets rumored to be about Hogwarts." Nott was smiling like a shark again, but Draco didn't reply, the gears in his head whirring, trying to work past the sludge of alcohol on his brain. Rumored…a friend…secrets…

Something felt familiar about all of this, like a niggling guilt at the back of his mind, that knowledge that he wasn't doing what he was supposed to, he was neglecting his duty…

Duty to mend the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Lost Things, the place where that snuffling house elf had found the Firewhisky that Nott now had, the age old Ogden's she referred to as 'rumored'.

Nott knew what he was doing, or rather neglecting to do, in the Room of Lost Things.

The heat of the Firewhisky went cold as a shiver ran down his spine and his stomach dropped, making him feel nauseas, but he knocked back another gulp of Firewhisky, trying to kindle that fire again, trying not to think that Nott may know that Draco was a traitor, what he may do with that information.

What 'glory' he might gain from handing in the junior spy to his Dark Lord and earning his very own Dark Mark for the trouble.

Draco was given a moment to collect himself when the distraction of Terry Boot came fluttering into the common room, whining to Nott about something that Draco couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears before a pouty scowl was turned his way.

"So you're an arse and a drunk?" Boot snorted, "It should figure, you're a bit of a nutter these days, aren't you Draco? Cursing people for no reason,"

Draco snorted now; he had good reason to hex a lot of people, that damned Goldstein on the top of his list of people that deserved to be cursed.

"Sod off, Boot no one wants you here," he growled tiredly.

"Theo does, doesn't he?" he purred, turning to run a hand across Nott's chest, but froze under Nott's firm glower, silently agreeing with Draco.

"Anyway, all have you know that you should watch out for Anthony, Draco, if it weren't for Ginny warning him not to ambush you, then you'd be jinxed into next week,"

Draco sniggered mirthlessly at this while Boot strode away and out of the Slytherin common room with one last pouty look tossed over his shoulder. Goldstein couldn't aim a proper curse to save his life, let alone exact revenge on Draco. When he flicked himself another tumbler full of Firewhisky, he discovered that Nott wasn't scowling as he thought he would have been, angry and chagrined that his flouncy, poncy boyfriend had interrupted his moment of triumph, giving Draco long enough to recover.

Nott looked rather like Fenrir Greyback now, a predatory smile curling the corners of his mouth up and flashing his teeth and Draco could almost smell the stench of stale sweat, blood and god knows what else that followed the werewolf around in a rank cloud.

"Anthony and Ginny make a good pair," he remarked slowly, leaning forward in his seat, as if to pounce, and Draco felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as if he was trapped in a room with that horrible animal.

"She's a clinging, whiny bitch, but I suppose your own boyfriend is just the same." Draco countered, but Nott didn't stop smiling, nor did he stop leaning toward Draco, almost bent double in his seat, a mad light to his eye.

"And what of you Draco?" he whispered, "Rumors says that you've found your own bloke to cling to. How is the fantastic Harry Potter then?"

Draco drank deep from his tumbler, held with a shaking hand that he hoped Nott wouldn't notice, knowing he would. He hated Nott so much at that moment, he hated the fantastic Harry Potter for a fleeting second too, but mostly he marveled at what a wonderful Death Eater Nott would be. He was perfect; manipulative and cold hearted, like Draco thought he himself had been.

Draco hated it.

The smoky haze of the Firewhisky was curling in his chest and fire licking at his throat, charring every frigid, biting barb before it reached his mouth so Draco sat in fuming silence, thoughts of the _fantastic_ Harry Potter invading his mind and smoldering there.

Nott looked as though he was enjoying himself.

"Rumors say that you two are rather quiet about it, sneaking about," Nott smirked, "Properly Slytherin, but surely you didn't think that no one would notice."

"I expect only the obsessive vultures like yourself that envy and watch my every step would notice," Draco said hotly, "Its unbecoming, you know, charming fake Dark Marks on your arm and whispering Unforgivables, playing dress up as if you're your daddy."

"What's unbecoming Draco," Nott's voice was trembling dangerously, that creepy smile only widening and curling, "is a blood traitor."

The traitorous blood in Draco's veins went cold at that and he suddenly felt very weak, and he fumbled for another drink of liquid courage, because he needed it desperately to face the realization that he was going to die. Die a disappointment in his father's eyes, die a disgusting traitor in Harry's, die as that evening's entertainment at the feet of the Dark Lord all while they laughed and Nott grinned—

No, he had to stay calm; he had to think clearly, even through the terror. Nott barely had any evidence that he was a traitor, a Vanishing Cabinet that no one really knew how to fix and a few rumors that he and Potter were locking themselves away in broom cupboards were nothing, nothing real; just suspicions, rumors.

He wasn't going to die, not yet anyway.

"If you so want to serve the Dark Lord than I'd expect you to stay out of the way of his plans," he said evenly, glaring daggers into that one, narrowed eye, "Only he and I are supposed to know what's going on in that Room, Nott and I'm sure you wouldn't want to displease him."

Nott seemed to consider this, the smile fading, but a shadow of it twitched at his lips as he said, "Of course I don't Draco, I mean to be of all service possible to him and I think giving the Dark Lord something that you've hoarded away as your own should be a great service to him indeed."

"And what's that?"

"Why, Harry Potter naturally."

Draco felt fire rise on his tongue, and he wished he could incinerate Nott with a few choice words, but he couldn't, they meant nothing without the proper kindling. Draco had nothing but a corner to be backed into, maybe a curse or two to cast but nothing more than that, certainly not anything that could take that victoriously sinister smile off his face. Nott had a far superior weapon in knowledge than any amount of witty jibes or well-placed hexes.

So Draco poured himself another tumbler of the age old Ogden's and drank, diving headfirst into that fiery river that burned away the chill, left Nott and his threats to watch and smirk, and Draco couldn't do anything about it.

Worries with their frigid, spine-creeping terror kept trying to worm their way into his mind, but each time he banished them with another gulp, until there was only the greatest fear, the greatest trouble that weighted his mind, the most outlandish, most brilliant fantasy to ever flit its way through his mind and brand itself there.

Harry.

~o0o~

Harry tried to keep himself from getting all glazy-eyed and distant like Ron kept mumbling about. Ron was worried and so was Harry, his troubled thoughts incessantly drifting to Draco whenever he got all glazy-eyed and distant.

Harry felt as sick as ever, his thoughts mixing with a dizzying combination of disgust for Death Eaters and the longing for the youngest one. He still couldn't believe he still was mooning over Draco Malfoy the Death Eater, _the Death Eater._

That was the part he couldn't believe more than anything else.

Oh, Harry had stated the obvious in saying that no one would be surprised in finding that the daddy-worshipping Draco had tattooed himself with the same title as his father; this should be apparent to anyone. Anyone who hadn't seen his eyes unguarded, hadn't compared their slate grey shade to that of a December sky, hadn't imagined themselves snuggled in his pale arms and never had heard his fear in the tremble of his smooth, drawling voice.

Harry had experience all those things and they had blinded him, setting him up for a long, hard fall as he fell arse over kettle for Draco Malfoy.

At that moment though, he was anything but oblivious to the presence that shadowed him, an irritated little burn of a stare on his back, a scrutinizing glower he knew all too well.

He paused in his stride and listened as the steps scrambled to come to a halt, and he sighed. He had thought that he might've had a moment alone to as he walked to his next class without Ron and Hermione's pitying gazes, opting to take a passage less traveled, but he'd underestimated Ginny apparently.

"What do you want, Ginny?" he asked raggedly.

"Harry," she said gently, "Where are you going?"

Harry turned around to stare at her, blink at the way she was speaking to him as if he was stupid, or worse, fragile. He hated it that she undoubtedly thought that he was broken now, by Draco, that he couldn't go on a day without him.

He was fractured, maybe, just a dull ache where the knife wedged itself between his shoulder blades and the bubbling cauldron of things he didn't want to look into in his chest, but he wasn't broken.

Just very hurt and quite sick.

"I'm off to Potions," he replied just as slowly, "Shouldn't you be in class?"

Harry was even more confused at the relief that spread across her face as she dashed up to him and assured him, "Flitwick won't miss me."

"Where did you think I was going, Ginny?"

"You don't usually go this way."

"You don't usually follow me around the castle."

She frowned, "I wanted to make sure you got to class and didn't skive off."

"Aren't you skiving off Charms right now?" he snorted, "What are you really doing Ginny?"

"You haven't been to the Room of Requirement yet, have you?" her eyes narrowed and she gave the curve in the corridor a suspicious look.

"What, Ginny?" he huffed, exasperated by her damnable mystery and unhelpful worry.

"Just be sure you do before you go sneaking off to the dungeons, Harry."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know the castle as well as Fred and George and so do I," she explained calmly to Harry's glare, "And you and I both know that just around that corner is the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms."

Harry gaped at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before he processed what she was saying.

"You think—" he spluttered in outrage, "You think I was going there to—to see him."

She gave a grave nod and he had the strongest urge to march into the Slytherin commons just to spite her.

"I'm just worried about you, Harry," she said earnestly, tentatively reaching out a hand that he flinched back from, breathing sharply through his nose as he tried not to say something she'd make him later regret.

"Don't." he growled, "Just don't."

"How can't I?" she snapped, "Malfoy is awful and he's got this—this _thing_ with you."

Harry was about to retort something about the _thing_ Ginny was trying to force upon him when he was bowled backward, a scent all too familiar assaulting his senses and making him freeze, doing nothing to stop the equally familiar pale fists clutching at his robes.

Why did Draco always smell like mint? It overcame whatever cologne he might've been wearing and hazed Harry's thoughts with a pleasant miasma. There was something else hinting through the scent today however, sharp and rather smoky. Firewhisky.

Draco was plastered, he had to be. His stance was swaying even as he gripped onto Harry, his eyes unfocused and misty, staring at him with a drunken intensity that made Harry shiver, his slightly open mouth and pressing presence spurring ideas, memories and an onslaught of rushing blood.

And he stayed frozen, knocked senseless by the body he'd been longing for suddenly so close, as if to make up for lost time, even as Draco leaned in near enough for their lips to nearly brush, _right in front of Ginny_, and spoke in a crooned hiss.

"Harry," he began, and Harry wanted to surge forward and capture those Firewhisky-laced lips, both to shut him up and because he _wanted _to, _needed _to.

And because he was still calling him 'Harry' for whatever unfathomable, wonderful, will-shattering reason.

Harry's will was indeed nearly well and truly shattered just to hear his name, his given name, clumsily rolled off that smooth tongue.

Right in front of Ginny.

Harry knew he should probably be concerned with the words she was yelling in shrill tones, but they never quite made it past the fog of that mint, the encompassing enchantment of those eyes, and then there were the words, slurred and muddled, but far, far more important than anything Ginny could ever shriek.

"Harry my house elf," Draco breathed, a small flash of a smile gracing his face, "Harry you're my house elf and you take care of me good, don't you?"

The curse begged for an answer, his ever-present headache screeching like an ill-tuned violin, but his master rambled on.

"Take care of me _well_," he corrected with a firm look and hiccup, "I was almost talking like you, 'cause you're the elf, not me."

From the corner of Harry's eye, he could see that Ginny had drawn her wand and was glowering at them threateningly, and he knew it was a matter of minutes before Draco—or he—was cursed with something nasty and likely irreversible, given the look on her face.

"Ma—Draco," he said softly, and then that hazed stare cleared slightly, and all the faint bemusement was gone and replaced with something urgent and uncomfortably watery.

"Harry, Nott is bad," he babbled, breath quickening, "Him and his Firewhisky and Boot. He nicked my Firewhisky, Harry. That elf—"

They both swore as Ginny's wand gave off a bright, angry spark and a loud pop.

"Harry, you can't." she growled, "Don't let him steal you away again."

"_I'm_ not stealing him!" Draco bellowed, frustrated and drawling and drunk all at once as he swung around to face Ginny, "_He_ will, you stupid bint!"

Ginny raised her wand with a jinx that Harry knew was probably illegal and scarring and aimed directly at a pissed, out of his head Draco Malfoy, his Master and the boy he needed to protect more than anyone else.

It was these facts that summoned up the force that knocked Ginny backward, skidding down the hall with a cry.

For a few heart stopping moments in which both Harry and Draco stood with bated breath and incredulous eyes, Ginny didn't move, didn't budge and once again Harry wondered how far Draco Malfoy and the curse would make him go. As far as to murder his best friend's little sister?

But she rose, all fire and fury, and Harry was spared of trying to answer such a terrible question, but there was no mercy when it came to the rage of Ginny Weasley.

"Harry, you—" her voice was an icy façade of calm worthy to that of Draco's, "I understand now."

Harry hoped that she understood that he didn't want her 'worrying' about him, but naturally, he wasn't that lucky.

She stood, her wand aloft, but she didn't appear to be planning on hexing Draco just yet.

"Ginny," he said, "Could you—maybe leave? For a moment?"

"No, Harry" she regarded him coolly.

"C'mon, Gin, it's not like—"

But what he'd been denying ("It's not as if we're going to throw ourselves at each other…") happened as he discovered himself with another armful of Draco, whose mood had shifted once more, unfortunately to that of the anger Ginny was carefully bottling up.

"Harry," he hissed, "Don't you dare. Don't you dare, ever."

"What? Dare to what?"

But there was a twist, a tie in the curse and a drop in his stomach as if recalling a snatch of a long forgotten song, the words muddled but notes high and clear. It was a memory, maybe, or an order.

One he'd have to obey.

**A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review!**


	12. Severed

Severed

Harry opened his mouth to ask his Master just what the hell his drunken self was trying to say, but all sound in the corridor seemed to be silenced by the soft, crushed velvet voice that echoed about them.

"And just what is going on here?"

Harry turned in horror to see Snape billowing toward them, a sneer and disapproval etched all over his face. He took a few scrambling steps backward, but Draco—damn him—did not relinquish his grip and simply leaned forward, feet planted firmly to the flagstone.

"Well? Is there any particular reason you've deemed my class unworthy of your precious time, Potter?" Snape glowered as he swept up beside them.

"I was just on the way but, um," Harry muttered, shrinking under the incredibly black glare Snape seemed to be trying to overwhelm him with. It was working, seeing as all proper explanation and any other words were fleeing his head and he became suddenly very aware of that damnably delicious scent of mint wafting off of Draco.

"'Um', yes, right. Indeed, such a dreadfully urgent matter." Snape drawled, "So then this 'um' business of yours involves…kidnapping my students?"

Harry shifted his gaze to Draco, who was staring at Snape with a petulant look that was a borderline pout.

"Sev'rus," he moaned piteously, and Harry was gobsmacked to see what was unmistakably bit of softness creep into Snape's usually cold and heartless black eyes.

"Professor I—" And at the sound of Harry's voice whatever he foolishly assumed to be human vanished in the dour man's endless tunnels of eyes, the sneer returning.

Snape reached out and gingerly detached Draco's fingers from Harry's robes, taking the Slytherin by a limp wrist and guiding him away from Harry, who was left to stand there. Pretending he didn't want to object to Snape stealing his Master away—taking that fresh mint aroma and all the heat of his body with him, the corridor felt slightly cold as he could only watch the two parade away.

"Oh, and Potter," Snape suddenly called over his shoulder, "While I escort Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital wing, I expect you to make your way to class and begin a three foot essay on why it's immoral to kidnap classmates. I expect it on my desk by this evening when you serve detention with me after dinner."

The hallway felt significantly colder.

~o0o~

Draco couldn't quite tell if his godfather was angry with him, anyone would easily assume so by the way he dragged him mercilessly along, up stumbling flight after stumbling flight of stairs until he was sure that he was either going to faint or retch. However, Draco knew Severus well and if the man were indeed angry with him, he'd be left to fend for his inebriated self out of spite.

Draco decided however, that he was angry with him when he found himself shoved unceremoniously into the Hospital wing, that awful place with its sterile smell that made his head pound and stomach clench. Severus likely knew what it did to him, and what Pomfrey would do to him in a matter of moments.

A potion was thrust into his hands and he popped off the cork without question, the movement wooden and his eyes downcast as the Potions master glared at him. A smooth, bitter taste that slid down his throat and chilled it as he downed what was undoubtedly a Sobering Potion. It sent a frigid wind through his bones and a splash of ice water to his mind, the burn of the Firewhisky immediately deluged with a flood of sobriety that made him shudder and blink for a moment.

Severus stood there, more clear and a little less angry perhaps. He gave him a long look that Draco instantly understood and just as quickly hated. He did not want to talk to Severus later, not about the dangers of running about drunk, not about Nott and his hungry threats, and most certainly not about Potter. He had nothing to say about Potter.

Although he had so much to say to him.

He shook his head, making him dizzy all over again, and earning a scowl before Severus swept away, slamming the doors with an echoing thunk that Draco winched at.

The sound summoned Pomfrey naturally, and Draco groaned at the shrill, disapproving, _mothering _tirade she wound herself into at the sight of him. He didn't listen to the half of it, merely sighing and resigning himself to the coddling he was in absolutely no mood for.

"Mr. Malfoy!" she bustled him toward a bed, "Where have you been?"

He made no effort to explain the hellish places he'd been braving the few days he'd avoided her as she scurried off, fetching a ridiculous amount of potions that Draco probably didn't really need.

"You need to come to me straight after…after…" she faltered and gave him a sad look.

"I'm fine, just tired," he insisted as strongly as he could. That sort of sad knowledge in her eyes was worse than the wicked information that sparkled in Nott's. Pity was a thing he was surprised to find he swiftly grew sick of, the acknowledgement of a thing he wanted to bury and forget about never failing to make him feel even more tainted in the eyes of those around him.

Pomfrey, gifted with the medical talent of selective hearing, pressed several potion vials into his hands regardless. He swigged one that he presumed to be something brewed to numb aftereffects of curses such as the Cruciatus, and gagged just as he always did while she patted him on the back with a solicitous hand.

"I know it's rough," she said softly, before her tone got darker, "Especially when they're _celebrating_. Severus told me that your father's returned."

Fear and memory rose up in him like a wave on halcyon waters, colder than any chill of a potion and threatening to crest and spill in vomit and tears. His father had returned, broken out from one prison and thrust into another, nothing more than a trembling phantom of the proud, unshakable man he once knew and looked up to. Draco wasn't even sure it was him at first, and it was in only the briefest of smiles, a familiar encouraging smirk that he'd seen on countless occasions flickered from across the dimly lit room that he truly realized that the terrified man who twitched near his mother was indeed his father. Or what Azkaban had done to him anyway.

Draco couldn't smile back, couldn't hold his chin up like a proper Malfoy would, he couldn't even look at his father. Instead his gaze was grotesquely drawn to the new game about to be played, the _celebration_ taking place, writhing and screaming and bleeding and imprinting itself on his mind where it would prey on his and darken them to match the stain on the drawing room floor.

He took a shuddering breath and realized that Pomfrey's unwelcome hand was lightly shaking him. He frowned and drank another potion, screwing up his face in disgust. This, for whatever reason, mollified the medi-witch as she nodded to herself and strode away.

After drinking the last potion thrust upon him, Draco snuggled himself down into the bed, giving in to the exhaustion that weighted his limbs. When was the last time he'd had a proper night's sleep? Not since there was a warm body wrapped around him, but that wasn't about to happen again anytime soon. He should be content, be able to rest, after all, even drunken and slurring he'd made sure Harry wasn't about to pitch himself off the Astronomy Tower because of his stupid, big Gryffindor mouth.

And then there was another big, Gryffindor mouth shattering any vain hope at a restful sleep.

"Excuse me? Malfoy?"

Draco supposed he could only be thankful that Granger hadn't turned on him as well for that Mudblood comment he'd never apologized for, unless this was the moment she'd exact her revenge on him, weak and vulnerable in the Hospital wing.

"And you desire what of me?" he asked dryly, rolling over to see Granger tentatively step toward his bed, one hand clutched securely around her precious notebook whilst the other twisted nervously in her bushy hair. This was not the appearance of a wrathful Gryffindor, but rather a skittish Hufflepuff.

"To know if you're alright."

Draco felt for a moment that she wasn't even speaking to him, this soft, concerned tone was reserved for the two that she constantly flanked, not some bratty Slytherin that called her a Mudblood.

"Well I'm in the Hospital wing," he replied wryly, "What do you think?"

Draco shouldn't have been so surprised when she decided to ruthlessly unload her entire mind unto him, after all without he and Harry as her captive audience in the library, where else had she to dump every notion her overly large brain created? He spared a moment to pity Weasley.

"You seem as if you've been…ill lately," she began, "And Harry and I have been worried. I'm not sure what happened after the altercation in the library, but I'm fairly sure you and Harry had a falling out of some sort."

He didn't say anything, but his silence evidently that was answer enough as she went on, her drone working its way into Draco's mind, leading him to a time that he used to live in not so long ago.

"You're frankly being a prat about whatever it is that's made you this way, but that's just how you're dealing with it. You're being so thorny so that you're keeping us away, but I do believe you've underestimated Harry.

"But Harry's scared, just like you, and though he can get past your thorns, he's afraid to examine what's going on between you, which we both know is more than the enchantment gone wrong. And now you've had this row and you probably think it's for the best because it's ridiculous to think about…well, you and Harry. But it's not, Malfoy, and I know that Harry doesn't think that way. He's never much cared for what the world thinks about him, though you may think differently. He really hates the fame.

"That's why I think I know what this row of yours was about. It's all been a misunderstanding, hasn't it? There's something that Harry doesn't know and he's being too stubborn for you to tell him, right? Typical of him. But you really need to try and tell him, even if he's being a thick git about it because I know he's unhappy with this and so are you, Malfoy."

She was met with silence again, but it didn't matter as she was addressing her notebook, reading the bits of notes and scribbles there in the pages where she'd recorded the dynamics between the master and house elf, the two oblivious boys that were blindly falling for each other.

"You're already so brave, Malfoy, facing the things you do," she said softly, "How much courage does it take to tell Harry that you're a spy and wake up to the fact that you two—love each other?"

Hermione blushed, staring wide eyed at the floor and waiting for the indignant denials or demands for her to leave or be thrown into a mental institution, and perhaps—if she was very luck and if Malfoy was very, very tired—the admittance that she was right about the fear and the row and even the love that had bloomed in the twinning of the botched spell, which had efficiently brought them together to finally realize that they just might be right for each other. (This is what she told herself anyway, when she was feeling particularly guilty for the curse she'd placed on her best friend.)

She was, however, only met with silence, and this was not the quiet of a resigned answer, a fact that hung in the stagnant air that spanned between them, nor was it the pause before a storm of anger struck, it was just…nothing.

And when she lifted her gaze, she knew why there'd been no response. It was because Draco couldn't respond, and Hermione could only gape at the Slytherin, curled in the hospital cot just as he'd curled up in his conjured arm chair in the library, fast asleep just as he would be by the end of any theory she explained.

Even if it was why he and Harry wouldn't admit they loved each other.

She couldn't bring herself to wake him and say it all over again though, not when he looked like he was experiencing the first bit of peace he'd had in days, years even, if the dark shadows under his eyes were anything to go by.

So she let him sleep and let him stay a coward, if only for this moment that he needed.

~o0o~

Harry had gone to Potions, but couldn't be arsed to pay attention even under Snape's glaring presence because his head was abuzz with questions, along with the lingering high that that intoxicating smell of mint seemed give him.

The curse knew its orders, but Harry didn't and that was troubling. Troubling enough to make him completely forget the easy he'd been assigned, but he didn't dwell on that, not when he was plagued with some many unanswered questions, including as to why Hermione was rushing in half way through the lesson he wasn't paying attention to.

She ran up to Snape and handed him a piece of parchment, which he read with a look of distaste and a mutter that was likely the deduction of house points according to the scowl on Hermione's face as she took her seat near Ron.

"Where have you _both _been?" Ron hissed, looking thoroughly exasperated.

"I told you, Ginny held me up in the corridor," Harry had neglected to mention the part where a drunk Draco Malfoy tackled him and he'd hit Ginny with a blast of accidental magic. Ron didn't need to know that. Not really.

"I was with Madam Pomfrey, talking to her about the enchantment." Hermione whispered.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ron demanded.

"Why? You didn't want to come did you?" Hermione asked dubiously.

"Well if it could help, you know, work on a cure for Harry's…condition."

"I'm glad to see you've taken an interest, but why?"

Ron turned a little red, and Harry suspected he was regretting the fit he'd thrown over the curse when it'd first been cast all over again. Harry didn't blame him, nor did he blame his lack of involvement in finding the 'cure', between Hermione and Draco it wasn't exactly the most entertaining, or sane, study groups.

"Harry needs to be free of this," Ron said firmly, "Free of _him_, if—if that's what he wants of course."

He cast a nervous look to Harry and Harry couldn't help but smile. Ron was being brilliant about all this, a little frustrated and very concerned, but that's what a brilliant friend was and Harry was lucky to have him.

"Yeah," Harry said quietly, "I think that's what I want, Ron."

Harry missed the frown Hermione sent his way, but he unfortunately caught almighty sneer Snape directed toward their table.

"That's another twenty points from Gryffindor for your whisperings. Kindly discuss your undoubtedly pressing matters elsewhere or I'll grant you a long evening of detention in which you can gossip all you like as you wash out my vast collection of cauldrons by hand."

That effectively sent every Gryffindor in the room swiveling in their seats to glare at the three of them and silenced all conversation throughout the rest of the class, which was minimally disastrous thanks to Hermione actually listening to Snape while Harry and Ron brooded about their respective troubles. Neville's cauldron only bubbled ominously, but it never boiled over or exploded. This time.

After escaping Potions without any burns or injuries the three of them walked down their usual path, Harry casting a furtive glance to the curve that lead to the Slytherin common room, wondering if that was where Draco was now, wondering when he might be able to see him again, meet his eye, and if he had the courage, ask what the hell he'd told him to do.

"Right then, 'Mione tell us how close we're to finding the cure." Ron rubbed his hands together, and Hermione shook her head, fishing out her precious notebook from her bag.

"What I've found most probable is a certain order severing the bond," Hermione said, flipping furiously through the worn pages, "But I'm unsure as to what the wording would have to be or who has to say it."

"Who would have to say it?" Ron echoed.

"Draco, the heir, or Lucius the head of the Malfoy house?"

"Damn, I hope it's not Lucius."

"We can't be sure of course, after all one of Malfoy blood aside from Draco is knows about the enchantment gone wrong."

Hermione's words dredged up the memory of a statuesque woman standing in the rain, desperation in her voice, which bound him to an order, a command he was failing to see through. They did know, the Lady of the house did anyway, but no one, not even Draco knew that.

He wondered if Lucius did know, if his hold would even span the distance between Hogwarts and Azkaban to wring itself around Harry's neck. He wondered if Draco would still be able to whisper commands from his cell. He didn't want to know. He didn't want Draco to be put in Azkaban along with his father and that's why he said nothing as Ron and Hermione muttered their theories the rest of the day.

It might've made him a coward, or stupid. Above all, however, one thing was for sure, he was doing something that wasn't expected of him again in bidding his time and waiting for something to happen, waiting for Draco to do something.

And he did.

~o0o~

The corridors of the castle still felt cold as Harry trudged down to the dungeons for detention, empty handed of any essay as to why it's immoral to kidnap fellow students or any proper excuse. He'd easily be able to pen a five foot report about his mixed feeling and blurred suspicions, but all those thoughts were better left to brew in that cauldron in his chest until they went stagnant and he didn't have to feel torn in two anymore.

He caught himself taking the same path as before, this time blessedly without an unwelcomed, 'concerned' witch trailing after him.

He wasn't alone for long however.

Hushed voices were coming from around the bend in the corridor, hisses and a muffled rumble, but he couldn't make out the words of the heated whispers. A familiar burst of adrenaline shot through his veins as he pressed himself against the wall, fingering his wand in his pocket as he crept toward the curve with caution.

All the excitement of a small adventure was quickly dispersed with the breath-taking shock that associated itself with the sight of Draco Malfoy.

He was leaning against the entrance to the Slytherin commons, looking by all means casual if one neglected to see the dangerous narrow of his eyes and his slender fingers knotted in a white-knuckled fist. The two that stood before him obviously were oblivious to those small details, too focused on whatever point they were trying to put across with their growling whispers.

The two in question Harry instantly recognized to be Ginny and her boyfriend Anthony Goldstein, both looking angry and frustrated. Harry supposed anyone would feel that way when dealing with an uncooperative Draco.

"We all know it's been you so stop trying to deny it. You've done something to Harry; he wouldn't act this way otherwise." Ginny snapped, and Harry noticed that she had her wand drawn and it was spitting out sparks. Goldstein had his too while Draco stood unarmed, well, unarmed aside from his sharp tongue, which was a deadly weapon indeed.

"I haven't been denying anything if you care to notice. I've only been pointing out the obvious fact that you pair have gone round the twist."

"I saw it with my own eyes Malfoy," Goldstein rumbled, "You told him to do something and he did it, without question."

"Well then you should be familiar with that, yeah? Haven't you been thoroughly trained by your so-called girlfriend; or does she make you call her 'mistress'?"

Goldstein snarled and thrust his wand threateningly at Draco's throat, and Harry nearly jumped out of hiding as Draco flinched, a glimpse of that young, scared boy that only Harry seemed to be able to see peeking out from behind the cold mask. But then Harry saw something even more familiar and worrying, that smirk that spread across Draco's pale face before he said something very, very offending.

It was usually the face he'd see before Draco was hexed into unconsciousness.

"I've been wondering about you, Goldstein." He said slowly, poisonously, "Terry Boot is your best friend correct? We all know that you pair share similar tastes, so why not the same tastes in men? Bitchy, domineering, and slutty—yes, Theodore Nott and the Weaslette here are practical twins, aren't they?"

Harry felt the spell rather than heard it, though Goldstein's outrage echoed through the silence of the dungeons. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was angry and powerful and it didn't matter because Draco blocked it with his wand that had materialized out of nowhere. Ginny was standing by, looking as if she'd been slapped and Harry had the notion that she'd been hoping that whatever sort of intervention this was wouldn't resort to curses, because she full well knew how Harry would react.

And Harry's reaction indeed was violent, almost scary in its force. The curse was thrumming, vibrating on tension and poised to spring, demanding its master's safety and expecting Harry to do anything and everything in his power to make sure he was indeed safe.

Expectation is a terrible thing,

Instead of jumping to his aid, however, Harry found himself as dumbstruck as Ginny; kept in place by some fear he couldn't get over, the heart-thumping fear of the reason as to why he felt so warm when he looked into the face of a Death Eater.

The duel, if that's what the furious exchange of curses could really be called, raged on while Harry stood by and waited, because this time he knew something was bound to happen.

Draco was obviously getting as frustrated as he'd made Goldstein, his graceful counters turning to sinister-sounding spells as the Ravenclaw, who was admittedly holding his own, unleashed his vast repertoire of hexes.

And it was when what was surely Draco's last nerve wore away, his last grasp of sanity slipping, that cold concentration whittled down to nothing but a desperate, terrified boy with a crazed light in his eyes that almost appeared green, that it happened.

"_Crucio!_"

Harry heard it then, that high scream of a curse, but he mostly felt it; the swoop of something blood-curdling and bone-chilling, the briefest, most terrible of pains that Anthony Goldstein felt as he writhed in agony on the cold stone floor.

It was in that moment that Goldstein was screaming and Draco looked very well about to that realization—and maybe a dreadful sort of relief-burst through his mind in a cacophony of memories.

_ "It could be permanent! I've insisted, but no one listens! Severus has been lucky, but he's older, stronger! Mr. Malfoy, he's just a boy that can't take that amount of pain, prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse is certainly not healthy for just a boy!" _

_ "She was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on you," he said softly, "That's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."_

Then there was that something, that flickering _bad, _painful something that Harry had now assumed to be nothing more than the weight of the title Death Eater.

Harry suddenly knew what was really going on, what Draco was really doing: taking lives and sacrificing his own for a name he never wanted, a weight he shouldn't be forced to bear.

It was only a few short—yet somehow excruciatingly long—seconds that the horror of the Cruciatus Curse held Goldstein in his claws before it was dropped along with Draco's wand from his slack, shaking fingers.

He looked like he was in just as much pain as Goldstein had been in, tremors rocking his frail form as he stumbled backward, eyes locked on a place that Harry knew wasn't in the corridor, but some hell where he played the part of Goldstein, the convulsing, pained puppet.

Seeing that, Harry wished he could Apparate Draco away from his own nightmares, but even with the miracle of house elf magic, he couldn't. So he did the next best thing.

He gave his master what he wanted, what he needed, and tried to make it better.

He rushed out from his hiding place, bypassing Ginny as she panicked over a recovering Goldstein on the floor and forgetting they were there all together as he gathered Draco in his arms just as he looked about to swoon.

"Draco," he crooned mindlessly, driven by a power and a volition that seemed to become one in that moment, the curse and the desire of his heart, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"

For a moment Draco clutched to him just as fervently, shaking and terrified, and Harry strangely felt perfect, the singing of the curse and the melody of his own heartstrings as one as he supported Draco, his master, his—

The moment was gone as quickly as it had begun.

"What did I say about apologizing when you don't mean it?"

The voice was as cold as steel, sharper than scissors as it sliced through Harry's thoughts.

"Draco," he tried, but the hands that had gripped him dropped in a whisper of cloth and a summoning spell. Then there was a wand poking his rib and a new, deadened command weaving through the curse with a lilt like a funeral march.

"Let me go."

Harry fought for the first time in a while, every twitch and twang reminding him of the glorious feel that had resonated through him for those wonderful days of the coldly friendly thing and the fetching of dropped quills and steadying of stumbles. His every tendon twitched in the fight, his will torn in two once more, but the order laced itself in his muscles like chains.

As he was pulled back, he glowered into those December sky eyes and implored Draco silently, trying to squeeze out some accidental magic to make him stay, make him face Harry or talk or do s_omething_ other than run like Harry once did and how he knew he was about to.

But not a spark came and Draco ran, flitting away like a leaf in the wind and still trembling just as much.

His disappearance was his final act of cowardice.

~o0o~

**A/N~ The next chapter will be the last, not including a bonus sort of story based from this one that will be nothing more than a short, silly thing that'll be posted as its own story. :D **

** Thank you all for supporting me through my second novel-length fic. I hope you'll be there to read and review the next one!**

** *bows like a humble house elf to my incredible, loyal readers***


	13. The Violin's Bow

**A/N~ I'm a filthy liar. -_-" Because of my awful habit of writing a 15k+ endings to fics, I've decided to split Acquiescence's ending into three chapters. I swear I won't be delaying it any further and the last chapters will be posted back-to-back over the next three days. :) **

**I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I have. I'm in the eternal debt of all my readers and will serve them with more slash until the end! **

**A special thanks to my betas, and another to my amazing reviewers! :D**

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**

**:D**

* * *

The Violin's Bow

"Just like him, isn't it, to run like the weasel he is?" Ginny spat, the malice in her voice clear even through the odd ringing in Harry's ears.

"Bloody coward,"

At one time, Harry would have agreed, but today every cell in his body seemed to disagree, the curse that never thought ill of its master protesting, and his own heart, weighted with a horrible knowledge, argued violently. His cells were tingling, curse growling, and heart pounding, the corridor suddenly seeming very hot and loud.

"No, he's not," he found himself saying, near snarling.

"Harry?"

He turned, still feeling incredibly, achingly, empty-armed without Draco protected in his embrace. Ginny was still hunched over a sweating Goldstein, all concern and innocence as if she was not the one who moments ago had a powerful rancor glowing in her eyes, her wand twitching to curse an unarmed boy. Her open gaze somehow made him angrier, a serpent of fury slithering through the curse and setting it aflame with the hisses she'd hissed, sparking with the sparks she'd directed at Draco, his master, that poor burdened, brave boy.

"He's not a coward."

Her stare hardened to something scrutinizing and frustrated, as if he was being stupid.

"You see? You see what he's done to you?" she pointed accusingly at him, but he didn't so much as blink.

"Done to me?"

"You—you're—he—" words failed her and her sharp look flickered back down to Goldstein, who was holding her hand and breathing shallowly, sweat slicked across his face as he recovered from the Cruciatus Curse.

"Is it really that awful?" Harry asked quietly, rage cooling, "Haven't you ever…felt like this?"

The look she gave him, melancholy, defeated, wistful, said that she had, she was, right at that moment she was as entangled was in something that was a curse not that much unlike Harry's own. It kept you captive to a single person, making you do the oddest things, like smile like a nutter or go out of your way to fetch quills, just to see if you might brush hands with someone that's become the master of something very important within you. It made you feel the strangest things, sometimes awful, but most of the time glorious, above all else it was reckless, unpredictable, and warm like a tumbler full of Firewhisky you simply, blissfully drown in.

They were all under curses, he, Draco, and Ginny; expectation, pain, and that mad, binding feeling.

Harry couldn't dwell on that now however, because somewhere Draco was running, believing he was hated, believing Harry was disgusted with him, and that was simply something Harry couldn't allow him to keep thinking.

This time he wasn't going to bid his time, sit around and play the coward. He was going to do something.

But then, as if the fates were truly against him, or in this instance, a single Hogwarts staff member, his escape was snatched away by the intimidating figure of a furious Severus Snape swooping down upon them.

"Again, I find Gryffindors in my dungeons and can't help but wonder as to why they assume these passageways were made to stage their petty disputes."

Once again, Harry was struck dumb by that black glare, this time accompanied by the echo of the seemingly unfitting title of 'Sev'rus' ringing through his mind. Would the Potions master he knew really consent to be called such a thing, even by his godson? Evidently, it was a very different man that Draco saw as his godfather, a man that had more feelings than indifference and loathing.

"Well, Potter?"

Harry realized with a jolt that the glaring man who was indeed at this moment the Dungeon Bat of Hogwarts and not Uncle Sev'rus was demanding something of him, probably an explanation that he didn't have.

"I—I cursed Goldstein again," he lied, "Sorry, I'll take him to the Hospital wing right away, Professor."

For a stupid, splendid moment Harry thought he'd gotten out of detention for a short time in which he'd spend every second catching up to Draco, wherever he may have fled to.

Unfortunately, for him, however, he'd have no such opportunity. Not that night.

Snape took in his eager face with a sneer curling his lip.

"I think not Potter. You'll carry out your punishment for this crime along with your other in detention, where you should be at this moment. Miss Weasley—" he snapped, turning to Ginny, who was whispering heatedly to Goldstein, propping him up into an unstable sitting position.

"Be sure Mr. Goldstein makes it to Madam Pomfrey in one piece. Also, kindly be sure to alert any fellow Gryffindors that may cross your path that yourself and Mr. Potter have lost your noble house another fifty points."

With much fumbling, Ginny helped the Ravenclaw off the floor, supporting his shaky frame as they started to hobble away. Harry stared at the floor, but he felt Ginny's eyes on him. The feeling made him shudder slightly, the intensity of it.

He looked up when their shuffling paused, panic rising in him as he saw that she looked as though she was going to say something, something horrible and undoubtedly the truth. Draco had used an Unforgivable on Goldstein. Harry was covering for him, like Draco had done for him the last time they'd had a run in with the Ravenclaw.

"He's going to hurt you,"

That's all she said, her voice almost inaudible, and maybe Harry had only imagined it as neither Goldstein nor Snape acted as if she'd said anything.

"Potter," Snape hissed as soon as the pair was out of sight, his voice a silken whisper, "I believe you've a detention you're late for."

Harry walked stiffly past him; mind working to try and find some escape from what would surely be a long, long imprisonment in detention. Could he possibly injure himself somehow and get Snape to send him to the Hospital wing along with Goldstein? Or would Snape leave him to suffer?

The click of a lock and the growl of a spell told Harry that the latter was much more likely.

The detention dragged on for what felt like the slow passing of a century. Harry sat, feigning progress as he scribbled aimlessly on a length of parchment that was supposed to be an essay about his being a spoilt brat with temperament problems. It was cold, and every tick of a second grated on the curse like a dull knife. His nerves were already frayed down to nothing under that glare he kept feeling, flickering onto him like the light of a guttering candle every so often and sparking some new annoyance and anger within him.

Shouldn't Snape understand? Obviously, the life of a spy was no ease; the secrets, the lies, the curses. He wondered why it seemed that only Draco endured the curses. Was it that Snape was already safe within Voldemort's inner circle while Draco was nothing more than a novelty of a Death Eater? It made him hate the man more than ever to imagine Draco twitching and thrashing and screaming while Snape stood by and did nothing more than _watch_.

Harry also wondered if he truly cared, if Uncle Sev'rus honestly cared. At least someone did, and that someone was the person who should the most; Draco's mother. Harry didn't know how much she could do, but she did something in ensuring her son's safety, risking her own as she turned to the enemy for help. She definitely cared, he knew, as he remembered that phantom figure, her beauty worn to worry.

She'd been so brave to do that, just as her son was to spy for the Light.

Harry wished he'd been less thick and a little braver in that bathroom days ago, but regret would get him nowhere but a miserable place he didn't want to return to. He knew that all too well whenever he heard a bark of a laugh in his dreams.

It must have been sometime well after midnight when Snape finally bid him a wordless good riddance with the swing of the dungeon room door opening. Harry walked out, an anxious spring to his step, not even pausing to glance back as he heard Snape set what was supposed to be an essay and was really a load of indecipherable scribbles aflame.

He wasn't about to go bounding about the castle, calling the Slytherin's name down the corridors. No, all the time had allowed him to think, too much perhaps about Dark Marks and his own brash stupidity, but he'd spared enough thought about how he wasn't utilizing the magic he had.

He nearly tore the Marauder's Map in two when he at last had it in his hands. He hadn't woken any of his dorm mates as he'd dashed stealthily into the room and rummaged in his trunk.

He scanned the folds frantically, turning the pages this way and that, but finding no dot labeled "Draco Malfoy". He was absent from the Slytherin dorms, there was no sign of him in the dungeons at all, in fact. Harry scoured every floor, the kitchens, the library, the Astronomy Tower, the Great Hall, _everywhere_, but, according to the Map that was never mistaken, there was no Draco Malfoy at Hogwarts.

_He's doing something in the Room of Requirement._

Ginny's words whispered through his mind and he immediately felt the tension ease from him, a sort of nervous laugh escaping him as he folded the Map decisively, trying to shake the nonsense, the nightmares, from his head.

That was the only explanation Harry could handle, because the other, less plausible, possibilities made Harry reel, images of red eyes and green curses flashing across his vision. He didn't need to think of that however because Draco was tucked away in the Room of Requirement, that place Ginny knew he was.

Harry wondered deeply what he might be doing in there, but if Draco was in Hogwarts, he was safe.

He repeated this mantra until exhaustion pulled him into a fitful, restless sleep.

~o0o~

He awoke with a jolt in the morning, a nightmare he was happy to forget slipping away as he fumbled for his glasses. It'd been something about a dimly lit room, a stench in the carpets, and jeering faces peering out from under black hoods.

"Alright, mate?"

Harry blinked blearily at Ron, who was already straightening his tie. Neville was dragging on his robes and Dean and Seamus were already gone.

"I was going to wake you a little later, I know Snape kept you late." Ron said, but Harry slid out of bed and ambled toward the bathroom. He didn't want to return to that room, no matter how tired he was.

By the time Harry, Ron, and Neville were making their way toward the Great Hall, Harry felt wide awake, anxious to see a pale head of hair ducked between Zabini and Parkinson at the Slytherin table. He was disappointed to find a space where that white-blonde head should have been, his eyes darting to the pair who flanked the spot. They were exchanging scowls and Harry considered simply walking up and asking where Draco might be.

Hermione was giving him a look that he knew he wouldn't be allowed to escape, however.

"'Mione," he sighed, but the look didn't relent. He supposed he was meant to give some long-winded apology he didn't mean. It made him wonder what Draco would say to that, but the echo of his words hurt.

_"What did I say about apologizing when you don't mean it?"_

"Fine, I'm sorry about cursing Goldstein again and losing Gryffindor more points." He muttered, "But you should know—"

"Harry, what in the world are you on about?"

Harry gaped, and she gaped right back, looking uncharacteristically perplexed. Ron looked just as confused and was mouthing '_again'_?

"You don't know then?" Harry asked.

"Know what?" said Hermione.

"Well, last night, Goldstein and I, um, got in a row and I cursed him with something nasty, so he's in the Hospital wing. Snape caught me and took points." He explained, sticking to the cover up Ginny had thankfully acquiesced to. He certainly didn't want Draco to get in trouble for using an Unforgivable. If poor Goldstein went along with the lie again, well Harry owed him. "Didn't Ginny tell you?"

Hermione shook her head and gave him a disapproving glare.

"What's up with you and Goldstein, anyway?" Ron asked, "You've gotten into a duel before?"

"Yeah, remember? It wasn't as bad as this time, but I still knocked him out cold. Flitwick-"

"Harry, that was Malfoy, wasn't it?"

Harry felt his blood go cold at Hermione's careful voice and the stare of those around him. Draco had taken the fall for that incident, he now recalled, thought it was really his fault in the first place, ordering Harry to.

"Right," he mumbled weakly, "Right."

"So what was it about then?"

Ron was thankfully oblivious to that slip of memory, along with everyone else, who had given up listening and went back to their breakfast.

"He was being a git to someone he shouldn't," Harry growled, and gave Hermione a significant look.

"Not Ginny?" Ron's face darkened, but Harry quickly shook his head. Ron didn't much care for Goldstein, or anyone who dated his sister, save for Harry, which did nothing to make him feel any less guilty.

"No, just—" Harry thought about telling them both everything, even if it seemed to break the promise the curse had made, but Hermione spoke up.

"Where is Ginny this morning anyway?"

"Haven't you seen here?" Ron asked around a mouthful of egg.

"No."

"Maybe she's with Luna?" Neville piped up.

"Nah, saw her earlier on her way to the Astronomy Tower to do Merlin knows what." Seamus said.

"The Hospital wing with her boyfriend then," Lavender said, "I don't remember her coming back to the dorm last night, after all."

"Well I'm not going to let her go the day without breakfast," Ron said with an air of finality as he rose, gathering a plate full of food.

"Since when were you the Great Meal Enforcer?" Hermione quipped.

"Since the lot of you decided that food was unnecessary." He retorted, "I'm going up to the Hospital wing."

"I'll go too," Harry said. He'd feel much better if he knew that last night's events were going to be properly forgotten. Stories needed to be made, hopefully without questions asked.

Hermione trailed after them as they exited the Hall, quelled to silence by Ron's well meaning frustration.

When they got into the bright Hospital wing, only three beds were occupied: a first year with a nasty cold, a third year that had a growth on the side of his head that looked like the beginnings of an arm, and then Goldstein, asleep.

Ginny was nowhere in sight, not by his bedside or anywhere else. Madam Pomfrey emerged from her office just as they were about to go back to the Hall to see it they'd missed her.

"You three," she huffed. "What is it this time?"

"We're just looking for my sister," Ron assured her, backing away nervously as she approached.

"Oh, she brought Mr. Goldstein in last night," she said. "But she's not here anymore."

"When did he leave?"

"After she helped Mr. Goldstein in,"

The three stared at each other, and a silent agreement was made as they walked back into the hall and down into an empty classroom. Wordlessly, Harry pulled the Marauder's Map from his pocket and laid it flat on a desk.

"You always keep it with you?" Ron asked, looking over his shoulder.

Harry didn't answer as he solemnly swore he was up to no good, because he didn't always keep it with him. He only did when he was very, very worried about someone. Usually that person was Draco Malfoy.

After a few minutes of folding and squinting, Hermione was biting on her thumb and Ron was running a hand through his hair while Harry bit his lip.

"She's not on it." Ron said slowly, his face paling, "Does—does that mean she's not in the school?"

"There is one place that's Unplottable, if you'll remember Ron," Hermione hastened to say, "The Room of Requirement."

"What would she be doing there?" Ron said, looking far less pale, the exasperation returning to his face, "What's she require then?"

"Shall we go find out?" Harry asked, his heart thudding, speculations buzzing in his head. What was she doing there, if she was there? Was Draco with her? Why? Were they both actually gone from the castle? Were they both in the Room of Requirement?

There was only one way to get answers.

"We have time," Hermione conceded, watching Harry with eyes he knew were trying to figure out what he wasn't telling her.

She'd probably find out soon enough.

When they made it to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, Harry was fretting about how they might gain entrance to the ever-changing room. When they looked upon the usually blank wall, however, that worry was gone and new ones sprung to life at the sight of a worn wooden door standing ajar, something certainly not normal for this extraordinary room.

Hermione asked something, but Ron and Harry were already bolting inside, stumbling at back the sight that lay before them. It was all junk, rubbish, unwanted things stacked in mountains that nearly brushed the high ceiling in the room that looked to be as large as a cathedral. Parchment and dust littered the floor, the walls sparkled with discarded potion vials, what was left of their contents dried and congealed, there were paths that twisted through the mountains, framed by broken furniture and stacks of torn and tattered books.

Harry wondered what this place was, _why _it was, but he couldn't stop to marvel now. There were people to find.

If they were there.

He and Ron split up, listening as Hermione did stop to marvel at the room, her questions and theories growing more and more faint as Harry stepped cautiously down the path he'd chosen, edging past the broomsticks and chair legs that poked out of the walls of rubbish beside him. After being turned around twice and running into the same patch of cobwebs, he found himself in a sort of clearing. There was no dust on the floor here, wiped clean by pacing and the swish of robes.

There was, however, Ginny Weasley on the floor.

Harry's heart dropped and his blood ran could at the sight of her, so very still, not much unlike the same form he'd looked upon lying near death in the Chamber of Secrets. He ran to her and gingerly turned her over, almost laughing in relief when she gave a sigh at his touch. Her features were peaceful, as if she'd merely decided this place was ideal for a pre-class kip.

"Ginny," he shook her gently, "C'mon, Gin,"

She wouldn't wake, and fear and memories of that dank, damp snake pit of a chamber rose up in Harry's head as he realized that whatever had pulled Ginny into unconsciousness wasn't sleep. It wasn't about to release her either. This time, thankfully, as he held someone injured, he was able to think through his panicked-scrambled brain and recall that there was such thing as magic and counter-curses.

"_Rennervate_," he swished his wand over her face.

Her eyes flew open and she sputtered as if gasping for air after a near-drowning, flailing and clutching onto Harry as she drew in breath after breath before, all at once, she went still and limp once more.

"Ginny what happened?" He asked, shaking her slightly and finding a small comfort in the fact that her gaze was still fixed on his, glazed and unfocused, but there and conscious.

"What happened?"

She blinked slowly, and Harry could see it was a struggle to open her eyes again as she fought whatever sought to drag her back into the dark again. He felt remarkably helpless as he watched and hoped and waited. It was all he could do, except to find Ron.

And whoever was responsible for this.

Her milky stare slid away from his suddenly, staring almost sightlessly somewhere behind him. He felt no prickle of a presence, but turned anyway, seeing nothing but an imposing-looking black cabinet that towered malevolently over them.

"What is it Ginny?" he asked slowly.

"…Ma—Malfoy's…" she replied in a weak, hoarse voice.

"Malfoy is what?" he demanded, something akin to terror tinged in worry snaking through him, through the curse like a serpent that seemed desperate to tell him something. It needed him to know—know what? This was the one instant Parseltongue was of no use to decode this slithering song.

"Gone,"

"What?" Harry was drawn back to the distant Ginny in his arms, "Gone?"

She nodded, the movement straining, her face scrunching in pain and Harry smoothed back her hair as her forehead broke out in sweat. She felt as though she had a fever. He focused on that, on the worry for her, because otherwise he'd think of Draco who was—he knew, from that sorrowful strumming of the curse—gone.

"He's gone?" his voice was hollow.

Ginny's stare was all the answer he needed.

"What happened?"

She seemed to think on this, a frown marring her slack jaw, her eyes concentrating for just a moment before slipping back into the fog that claimed her mind.

"Let me go," she said, and before Harry could protest she continued, "He said, 'let me go, Harry.'"

The room, once stuffy and cramped and pressing, felt very cold and empty all of a sudden. It lasted only a moment before the curse, and his mind, started writhing and whirling with worries, notions, and theories. Out of all the questions that he'd sought the answers to that day, he had only one true answer, the curse told him it was correct, and his heart lamented that it was true.

Draco was gone.

~o0o~

Madam Pomfrey had barely said a word after she took in Ginny, closing her off in the bed across from Goldstein's, which was empty now as he hovered along with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

As they congregated in the place Pomfrey had, with nothing more than an indecipherable look, designated for them on the other end of the long, white room, Goldstein had answered their queries but it appeared as if he knew less than they did.

But he knew something, he knew about what had really happened last night, that he'd been hospitalized not from Harry, but from Draco, and with an Unforgivable no less. Harry kept watching him, watched his anxious eyes glowering endlessly toward where Ginny lay in Merlin knows what condition. They never once shifted to him, as they once had with a glimmer of contempt. Now, it seemed, he was only focused on Ginny and not what outrages had happened to him.

Harry felt substantially warmer toward Goldstein now.

But really, he was cold all over, a fear that almost didn't seem his own flowing through him. Oh yes, he was petrified for Ginny, beside himself with worry for Draco, wherever he might be, but this terror was sharp and random, not the dull ache of fretfulness and helplessness. His scar seemed to be stinging, just a bit.

They waited, and waited, Ron asking questions to nobody in particular and Hermione giving answers to questions no one asked. They were missing classes and none of them appeared to care, not even Hermione, although she looked as if she was aching to find a book to find an answer in, because in this moment, there were no answers to be found in the sterile air of the Hospital wing or the anxious gazes of her friends. Pomfrey was silent and the world seemed just as so, waiting, breath held.

That breath was released in a gasp because things were worse than they thought.

Dumbledore came striding in, passing them without a glance, the twinkle in his eyes extinguished. His usually faintly happy face was grave, and he looked much, much older. Snape came storming after him, and he did spare their huddled little group a glance, but it was just black, unfathomable and without his usual sneer.

Never was that a good omen.

Ron was practically shouting his demands for answers, but some sort of silencing spell had been erected and it was useless. Dumbledore and Snape's figures disappeared behind the curtain that shielded Ginny from sight and they were left, again, to wait.

Harry hated this helpless feeling, made more intense by the curse, that utter _need_ to be helpful, like a proper servant. He needed to do something, just then, he _knew_ he was supposed to. It was like a command coiled in his veins, a song in a language he didn't understand, all the melancholy hymn of a cello interrupted by a raw, screeching wail in a speech he knew all too well: pain, desperation. Those grating notes were sporadic, but echoed in Harry's heart, strumming on his heartstrings.

Harry was jarred from his thoughts when he saw the curtain pulled back from Ginny's bed, and there she lay, so wan that the freckles on her face looked like blood splatter. Pomfrey was bustling over her, uncharacteristically tight-lipped, while Dumbledore and Snape spoke nearby, Snape's scowl deepening with every word Dumbledore's mouth formed. What Harry would have given at that moment for a good Weasley Wheeze that could hear through charms, especially when Snape suddenly gave a great twitch as if he were restraining himself from doing something violent. Dumbledore was merely shaking his head, looking terribly sad.

Hermione laid a hand on Harry's shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin, turning to demand what it was, but he saw her face, that thoughtful, calm face that he knew hid terror. The hand on his shoulder gave the smallest of gestures and he turned back to look at Ginny and Pomfrey. Pomfrey was now sorting through potions, but Harry saw nothing else, just Ginny.

Memory, that ruthless thing, reared up again, and he saw Draco in her place, the same worry Pomfrey had now as she indignantly groused her complaints to herself. It was the same.

Whatever had happened to Ginny, whatever curse had been placed over her, it was Unforgivable.

~o0o~

It was almost as if he'd been invited to follow, or rather, they knew there'd be no stopping him, so they made no effort to.

Harry marched after Snape and Dumbledore, leaving Ron, Hermione, and Goldstein to watch over Ginny who, Madam Pomfrey had told them shortly, was just fine. They too, knew that he wasn't about to stand by another moment without some sort of explanation, and made no protest, didn't even blink, when he left.

Once the three of them burst into the room, no lemon drops were offered and they all gravitated to their respective posts, Snape, in the shadows, blending in and looking as though he wished he could disappear into them, Dumbledore at his desk, looking weary but ready for whatever Harry had to throw at him. Harry felt very well as if he might throw and smash things again, the feelings whirling and screaming and whispering within him as he stood in the middle of the room.

"What's happened?" he asked first, his throat dry as Dumbledore's eyes bore into his.

"Miss Weasley has awoken from the spell of a Dark curse," Dumbledore replied, his words careful.

"An Unforgivable?"

"Yes, although we cannot yet tell if it was either the Imperius or Cruciatus."

Draco's phobia of the horrors of those three forbidden curses seemed to have spread to Harry as he shuddered at their names, at the images supplied with them.

"What's happened then?" he repeated.

There was another very pregnant pause, Harry felt as though he might scream just to fill it. In the silence, the cacophony that was building—an orchestra in his head, gaining a new musician with each passing hour—played louder and fiercer, that worry—that knowledge—Draco—his master—

"I know," It was the farthest thing from a scream, inaudible, powerless, "I know that he's Marked,"

Snape made a noise that was between a scoff and a growl. He swept from the darkness and started pacing, movement wooden and eyes glaring. Dumbledore slumped back slightly in his chair, closing his eyes in a vision of defeat that made Harry feel caught off balance.

"I see you've found out then,"

"As if such a secret was uncovered by even his meddling…prowess," Snape cut Dumbledore off, pinning Harry with a glare, "That fool told you, didn't he? He _showed _you. What is that boy thinking? If he is at all."

"Draco came back to Hogwarts from summer holidays Marked and with a mission," Dumbledore went on as if Snape hadn't spoken, "He didn't want to serve Voldemort, so he became a spy for the Light. Much like Severus."

"You speak as if he had a real choice in the matter, as I did, but—"

Dumbledore held up a hand for silence, but Harry burst as soon as Snape stopped talking.

"Where is he?"

There was an exchange of grim faces, the anger dropping from Snape's face and something beyond agitation and frustration flitted through his eyes, and it was a very human emotion Harry had had enough of today. Worry. He felt fit to shriek again, heart strings stretched, before Dumbledore finally went on.

"It appears as though he's gone to where Voldemort is."

It was very much like a scream, high, desperate, and soul curling as it raked through his ever tendon, every bone, every cell: an affirmative. Dumbledore was right.

"No," Harry was on the brink of laughing like a madman, the absurdity of it all. When had reality become so twisted? "No, he can't. Why would he? He's afraid—he couldn't have."

Dumbledore stared at him very sadly, pityingly; it made him feel like he was eleven all over again.

"His father has been taken from Azkaban. He is likely with Voldemort as well, and thus Draco has gone to him."

The most awful part of the words Dumbledore spoke was that they made sense, rather like Ginny, who was certainly right about one thing: Draco had hurt him.

His mouth felt numb even as another question mindlessly spilt past his lips, as if he were accepting what Dumbledore had said, even though he wasn't. He couldn't. Ever.

"How?"

Dumbledore gave him a long look, before shaking his head slowly.

"The mission he was set to do allow him the ability to leave it seems. Usually it's Severus who Apparates himself and Draco to the meetings."

"But how?"

"If I were to tell you, we both know what would happen, Harry."

They both did, far too well, the sharp, defiant looks traded between the aged wizard and the sixteen year old said everything, everything about reckless decisions and Gryffindor values.

So Harry turned to the Slytherin in the room, unflinchingly stared into those black tunnel eyes and shamelessly asked, _begged_ for there to be another truth in this tangled knot.

"What was his mission? Can't—can't you do anything, Professor?"

At any other moment, Snape surely would have rolled his eyes, but they didn't move, piercing Harry's as if he was reading his mind, he very well may have been, but Harry didn't care. He wanted him to see, see that he cared just as much as Snape did when it came to Draco and the awful fate that befell him.

"Albus," Snape's gaze flickered to Dumbledore, "Surely you see how, even with his father factored in, that there'd be no sane way that he would return to that place. You can't seriously be suggesting that."

Harry marveled for a moment that he and Snape were working together, and against Dumbledore of all people. But then Dumbledore's grim voice dispelled the surreal feeling and brought cold reality crashing back down around them.

"Severus, unfortunately that is exactly what I am suggesting. The pull of the love of a family is in no way sane, I'm afraid."

Harry hated that Dumbledore was looking at him again, looking at him as he had just Snape, that imploring, stubborn, even sympathetic stare as he threw another dreadful truth into his face.

"With all due respect," there was absolutely no respect in Snape's sneer, "_You_ don't know the boy as I have or…"

He trailed off, and for a fraction of a second, Harry could feel those cold eyes on him again, filling with loathing and a question not meant to be asked of Harry.

"Draco Malfoy was brave to take such a dangerous position as a spy, but even the most courageous of us have our weaknesses," Dumbledore said, "He, quite understandably, couldn't take the pressure or the pull of family."

His eyes and tone said that the matter was closed and never to be opened again, as if Draco now was just some fleeting memory that could be remembered with nothing more than a wistful nostalgia. The past tense of it all conjured images of a lonely tombstone in a potter's field somewhere, bearing the name of Draco Malfoy the Blameless Traitor.

It made Harry sick.

Snape drew back slightly, something uncertain flickering into his eyes, along with an uncertainty Harry felt was sneaking inside of him. Draco followed after his father so loyally, so blindly. Would that mean he'd follow him willingly into the den that housed his every nightmare? Harry wasn't all that sure if he knew the answer to such a question.

"You needn't worry, Harry,"

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes sharply, tensing as he expected to be told that Dumbledore and all his seemingly endless magic would have Draco back in a flash, or something not so happy, like the assurance that Draco never truly felt for him so there was no need to get all fretful and attached to the tosser.

"The curse is broken."

That was something Harry in no way expected. The air rushed out of his tensed body and he felt like laughing again, or crying in frustration, or doubling over and giving up on any further thought on the impossible matter because he knew, he _felt_ that it most certainly wasn't. What else could this knotted bundle of musical strings attached to someone far, far away within him be?

"No, no it's not." He said flatly, not a trace of humor in his tone.

There was that pitying look again. Harry was beginning to lose patience with the Headmaster. Is this what Snape felt like all the time?

"The only thing Miss Weasley was able to tell us was that Draco's final words whilst in the school were, and I quote, 'Let me go, Harry'." He explained calmly.

Harry thought he might double over this time, realization hitting him like a merciless punch to the gut. He could almost hear Draco's voice, so cold, the scissors that snipped the needlework inside him to unimportant bits, commanding him to let go, to stop caring, to stop loving-

He felt the sudden paranoia that he was disobeying—but he couldn't be if the curse was indeed broken—or was it just his guilty, house elfish mind? He felt beyond confused, completely torn in two, half of him very lucid and rather without purpose, the other in a faraway place, a dimly lit room, tied firmly to a pale boy with wide, scared grey eyes.

Not for the first time, he wondered how far Draco Malfoy would make him go.

The other two in the room seemed to be waiting for him to say something, react in some way that wasn't merely gawking stupidly at the floor at his feet, a hand he hadn't remembered moving clutching at his shirt.

Snape's eyes were on him like a force, waiting and expecting him not to be good enough, for him to be _Potter_, that spoiled, arrogant Gryffindor that could never feel anything for a Slytherin. Dumbledore, with his forever mild gaze, a benign sort of smile beneath his beard, was watching for a defeated and disappointed boy, a heartache ailing him that would heal with time, good friends, and lemon drops.

Expectation was a terrible thing.

They were waiting for something that would never happen though, because Harry did care for a Slytherin, and obviously, he more than fancied him because the heartache Harry felt wasn't the passing pain of a passing crush, a summer love that would never see the snows of winter. This, the love he was fairly sure it was, wasn't something that would freeze and be forgotten. It was cold, yet somehow warm, biting like frostbite and insistent like a bad cold. It was messy, irritating, consuming the body with a fever that touched the mind and left it reeling and never sure whether everything was just a dream, just a nightmare, just a wonderful curse.

So he stood straight, defiant, a scowl set firm on his face as he addressed the two men, who had grown anxious as he'd stood dumbly while processing the churning of his emotions.

"I don't think he's a traitor, I think he's exceptionally brave." He said, "And I don't think you appreciate how he feels in this mess of a war, or how I feel about him."

Snape looked ready to sneer his opinion on how the Golden Boy of Gryffindor felt, Dumbledore prepared to soothingly agree how courageous Draco was indeed, but then smile sadly and insist that he loved his family enough to go off to be in a hellhole with them. Harry however didn't stay to listen as he walked, didn't run, out of the Headmaster's office.

Their opposition wasn't a fear to face, wasn't a fear to run from. What had really happened to Draco was though was. Harry only wondered what he'd do when he came face to face with that. Fight or flight?

He honestly hoped he was as brave as everyone made him out to be.

~o0o~


	14. The Curse's Bow

The Curse's Bow

Harry felt lost. He hadn't any idea where to start. Or what he was starting. Or how he felt on what he was starting. All he knew for sure is that he had the most distinct feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong.

And it did, as things began to untangle before his eyes. Everything really started when Theodore Nott disappeared.

It couldn't have been more than twelve hours after Draco's disappearance that the other Slytherin vanished. The evening found Harry along with Ron, Hermione, and a still silent Goldstein in the Hospital wing, making weak, idle chat at Ginny's bedside as they waited for her to wake again. She'd been in and out of consciousness, slowly gaining lucidity as her eyes cleared of their haze more each time she opened them. The last time she'd even croaked for a glass of water, which she sipped, gazing at the ceiling placidly, before fading away yet again. That had been just after dinner, which they'd all reluctantly attended under Ron's wrathful mothering.

Their voices were hushed, even though only the ill first year remained at the other end of the room, reading a comic. Silence in this room seemed as mandatory as it was in the library, but just as it was there, it was broken.

"Anthony!"

They all whipped around at the voice that rang through the room, their indignant gazes turning to confusion at the sight of a near hysterical Terry Boot running up to them.

"Terry, what is it?" Goldstein asked, half catching Boot as he stumbled to a stop, catching his breath in great gulps.

"Anthony, he's gone,"

They all froze at his words and Harry could feel all eyes turn slowly to him to gauge his reaction. After having explained what had happened in Dumbledore's office, everyone had been treating him gently, much like Ginny once did. He just frowned and bared it though, even granting them all a reassuring smile when Goldstein, who appeared to have no grudge against him, gave him a consoling pat on the back.

"Who's gone?" Goldstein straightened Boot as he wobbled upright, tears glimmering in his eyes.

"Theo, Theo's disappeared!"

Theodore Nott, that smug, bored creature that Draco had been staring at not too long ago, was Boot's boyfriend wasn't he? Harry had forgotten that Boot was Goldstein's friend, and in turn one of Ginny's. The only real thought he'd ever given to him was vague images of him snogging Draco, which made his stomach roil in something he then wouldn't admit to be jealousy.

"What do you mean, he's gone?" Ron asked sharply, looking rather pale.

"The teachers can't find him anywhere," Boot choked, "Some of his things are gone from the dorm and no one has seen him since lunch."

"Has Dumbledore been searching?" Hermione asked, but the sob that shook Boot was all the answer she needed. If Dumbledore couldn't find him, then that meant there was no way he was still in the castle, or on the grounds for that matter.

Two Slytherin boys had vanished, there was a Gryffindor in a comatose-like state, and two boys had been left without word as to where their boyfriends (Merlin, Harry didn't know if he could even be classified as such) had gone to.

It was one of the things he'd been left to ponder, if Draco would have left him some kind of explanation if he'd gone of his own free will. Wasn't he worth a letter or a goodbye? According to Dumbledore, he'd been given his freedom as a parting gift, the haunting command of, 'let me go, Harry'.

He couldn't. He was disobeying by clinging to that spider's thread tied to some mystery, the smallest of reminders, the faintest of melodies. There was no doubting the connection he had to Draco, or the smarting of his scar as the day stretched on, and the knowledge that his master, wherever he was, was scared.

"Harry?" Boot was staring at him timidly, appearing to have calmed down while Harry had been thinking.

"Yeah?"

"Did...did Draco say anything to you? About Theo?"

Harry felt very uncomfortable, especially with everyone staring, which he should very well be accustomed to, but not when they were all so…sad.

"Why do you ask?" he countered.

"Well they were talking together the other day in the common room, drinking Firewhisky," he told him.

Firewhisky. Everyone seemed to be having a go at that lately. Harry, Winky, Ginny had seen those two age-old bottles, and now Draco and Nott. Nott and his Firewhisky…it was like a skipped chorus falling into place suddenly.

Draco had said something about Nott.

_"Harry, Nott is bad, him and his Firewhisky and Boot. He nicked my Firewhisky, Harry. That elf—"_

Harry had dismissed it as drunken rambling, the name Nott making no sense until it was now paired with Terry Boot and those bottles of ancient Firewhisky Draco had had. Nott was bad, Nott was now gone, Nott had the Firewhisky.

But how?

Harry had no idea in just what way Nott was bad, nor how he'd disappeared along with Draco, he did know, however, how he might find how he'd gotten his hands on Draco's Firewhisky.

Harry stood, waiting for objections and questions, but only finding a grim understanding on their faces, a watery curiosity on Boot's.

"Did he get that Firewhisky from the kitchens, then?" Harry asked.

Boot shrugged and turned back to Goldstein as he told his friend all he knew about the disappearances that day. Harry turned to his friends, a lame excuse on his lips, a lie that Hermione's disapproving glare would cut right through.

"I—I want to go and ask Dobby if he's seen anything," he said, not entirely untruthfully, "You'd be amazed at the things house elves see while everyone else is too busy to notice."

Hermione looked immediately satisfied at the rightful praise of house elves and sat a little less stiffly in her chair. He smiled wanly before going out of the Hospital wing and down toward the dungeons, looking for an elf, but not for Dobby.

Harry was aware that he received unwelcome looks from the elves when he entered the kitchens; barely any gave him more than a nod now. He didn't know if this was because of the huge amount of messes he'd left them over the years, or that he was generally one of them now, or more likely that they didn't much approve of his drunken exploits with their least favorite coworker.

Winky was in her usual place near the fire, hiccoughing and looking out of sorts and bleary. Harry looked around cautiously for any sign of Dobby, knowing that the elf would desperately wish to protect him from what he was about to do. Thankfully, he was nowhere in sight, so Harry plopped himself down beside Winky and gazed for a few moments into the fire, listening to her sniffles.

"Do you remember the Firewhisky?" he asked quietly, glancing again at the elves busy at work nearby.

"Winky remembers the rumored," Winky snuffled, giving him a hopeful look as if to ask if he was going to give her some more.

"Where is it now?"

"Your master asked the same, Harry Potter, not long ago," she shuddered as if recalling something frightening.

"And?"

"And Master was angry, very angry, Winky punished herself for—but she was only obeying her!"

Harry was baffled now; perhaps he wasn't as accustomed to the manner in which house elves spoke as he'd thought he was.

"Obeying who?"

"She says rumored to be saved, rumored is to be given to her friend," Winky was looking at a poker lying near the grate with a terrible interest gleaming in her glazed eyes. Harry knew that feeling all too well, that pull of a confusing chord, guiding you to an edge on a leash you could barely resist.

He shook himself and went on, "Winky, what's 'rumored' mean?"

"Tis what she said, it twas rumored it was there."

"You mean to say…it was _rumored_ that the Firewhisky was somewhere?"

"What Winky is saying, Harry Potter." she replied impatiently.

"Where was it rumored to be?"

"In that place, that place your master goes,"

A chill ran up Harry's spine, but instead of demanding just where his master went, because he was fairly sure of the answer, he addressed a niggling at the back of his mind, something that could very well be nothing, but felt like something. Something important.

"Who said that it was rumored to be there, Winky? Who is _she_?"

Winky looked at him as if he'd asked something obvious, which he very well might have, but then a knot was suddenly unraveled, and the thread of it, the knowledge, seemed to bind his throat shut at Winky's reply.

"Mistress Weasley tells Winky, she tells Winky of the rumored and that Master Malfoy keeps it away somewhere. She tells Winky that she should follow him so that Winky may find it."

Ginny. Ginny had come in that night Draco had found the Firewhisky, hadn't she? She'd barely glanced at it, but she'd always been an excellent liar. She'd sent Dobby off on some a chore to get his meddling presence out of the way so she could have Winky report back to her, tell her where the elusive Draco Malfoy was disappearing to and doing Merlin only knows what. But Harry had been there that evening, getting disgracefully smashed on the Ogden's and to the memory of his Master.

She was wrapped up in this—no longer just the worried, pushy, mildly irritating girl that was trying to hang onto something that was already gone and away, in the hands of a pale boy with grey eyes. She'd known then, that Draco was doing something in the Room of Requirement, dropping her sinister hints. Did she know what it was then? What had she been doing there this morning?

What had been done to her? And by who?

He wasn't sure who own the knife that he felt was being slowly, harshly driven into his back. It could be Draco's again, his first betrayal having long since faded to a disbelieving sorrow, a resentment of his own stupidity. Ginny's was new, laced with the sweetest of pities that did nothing to soften the blow, love and pain seemed to make everything sharper.

"Winky?" Harry asked, surprised at how level his voice was, "Who has the Firewhisky now?"

"Mistress Weasley's friend, Master Nott," she sniffed, turning her gaze back to him, away from the flames that danced on her watery eyes.

Harry only nodded, mind working furiously. Ginny had been trying to find out what Draco was doing in the Room of Requirement by sending Winky on a faux errand, and Nott now had the Firewhisky. Nott was bad, he was dating Boot, Ginny gossiped with Boot, Nott was gone. Draco was gone.

Nott knew something, and Ginny probably did too.

"Harry Potter?" Harry blinked down at the elf beside him, "Harry Potter's master is no longer at Hogwarts, is he?"

Harry could only shake his head, the knot in his throat abruptly becoming impossibly large and choking.

"Harry Potter must find him, won't he?"

Harry nodded, adamantly, because he was going to find him, bring him back, just as soon as he knew where he was.

He could find that much out from Ginny.

~o0o~

When he slipped into the Hospital wing it was late, past the time that Madam Pomfrey allowed visitors. He wasn't surprised that Ron and the lot had been ushered out already, even the first year was absent from the dark room.

Harry was surprised that Ginny was sitting up in her bed, as if she were waiting for him. He approached carefully, casting a _Muffliato _along with a wary look toward Pomfrey's office. Ginny just watched him with round eyes that had gained more focus since the last time she'd been conscious.

He seated himself in one of the chairs that had been left behind, wincing as it squeaked and realized that it was Ron, rather than Hermione, that had conjured the seat. Ginny seemed to read his mind, her eyes brightening substantially as she smirked.

"First time he ever tried to conjure a proper chair, he made this wonky, three-legged creature that scuttled off whenever anyone went to sit in it."

"Creepy," Harry remarked, "Rather like a spider."

"Oh, he was good and terrified, no question."

Quiet, not at all comfortable, lapsed between them and Harry steeled his will. This idle talk was meaningless, stalling, they both knew. She was wringing her hands in her lap in a nervous gesture that was not lost on Harry. She knew what he knew by his steady, piercing gaze and she didn't want him to know any more than he already did.

But he would, they both knew.

"I wanted you to be happy," she said to her lap.

"Ginny," she flinched at his hard, determined tone, "What did you do?"

Her hands twisted around, gaze unmoving, before she gave a shake of her head, long hair falling into her eyes and Harry knew he'd won whatever battle of wills had commenced in that few second's silence.

"I noticed it first, of course, it's always been there, the way Malfoy can capture your attention so completely," she began, something heart-breakingly wistful to her voice, "But it changed, the way you look at him. Sometimes—sometimes it was the way I would have liked you to look at me."

Harry felt a shamed chagrin heat his face, but Ginny didn't see it, curtained by her hair as she went on, undoubtedly with a rueful smile, bittersweet and longing.

"I didn't think anything of it for a while. Honestly, how mad was it to think that you fancied Malfoy? But then, something changed, you were acting odd, Malfoy was about you more often, and you were watching him differently.

"You—you weren't yourself Harry, it was like you were drunk, because you'd laugh with Malfoy and act as if you liked him, but then you'd get angry with him, like you were your old self. The outbursts of magic, how you were defending him, and then there's the way you just _stared _at him—I thought you were under a Love Potion, or a curse. It just wasn't natural, Harry."

It was a sort of drunken feel, wasn't it? It was a heat like Firewhisky, all dizzy, blissful and warm, but not without its temper and the unquenchable thirst for _more_, more of Draco, more of his affection. Dare he say it—more of his love.

"So when I started talking to Terry, I was worried that he was somehow taking advantage of you," she now looked at him, and Harry couldn't tell in the dim light if her eyes were glazed with the spell that head claimed her consciousness, or if it was tears clouding her eyes. Either way, he found himself giving her his hand, and a sad, thankful smile spread across her face.

"You know very well how much I tried to tell you that, obviously," she gave a flutter of a chuckle, "You're about as stubborn as Ron is, I should have known that.

"But then, Theo came and started to…hint at things, just making these innuendos as if Malfoy was truly doing something horrendous, and that it was in a room that I knew, that only a handful of people knew, that he was being dastardly in."

"The Room of Requirement," Harry said, and she nodded grimly.

"But he said he couldn't get in there to see, and so we made a plan to send Winky in to tell us. Bait her with alcohol and she's off."

"Did you find out from her?"

"No, Theo went and asked her, I believe. After catching you getting drunk I hadn't tried to get down to the kitchens again."

"He did, he had the Firewhisky,"

"Draco had some, didn't he? That time he ambushed you in the corridor?"

"Yeah, he was plastered and freaked out."

"I could smell the Ogden's on him, that stuff was quite old and powerful indeed," Ginny shook her head, "I had thought that Theo just fancied Malfoy maybe, but he seemed just jealous of Malfoy rather than you for some reason. He had some sort of vengeance to deal out and I hadn't any bother helping him to do it."

"Ginny," Harry asked slowly, the urgency of the question welling up in him, "What happened in the Room of Requirement?"

Her face twisted, all remnants of a smile gone as she looked pained and shamed, something that appeared to be fear sparking in her eyes as they unfocused, glowering back down at her lap.

"He told me he'd found out how to get into the Room," she said, her voice more quiet than ever, shaking in a way that didn't fit Ginny's brash, fearless personality, "And after what Malfoy had done to Anthony, I knew what was going on in that Room, and so did Theo.

"It was just after I'd taken Anthony to the Hospital wing, and we went straight to the wall we could never get past. We were thinking the same thing, all about secrets and Death Eaters."

Harry felt his scar twinge, lightening ricocheting through his skull at the mere mention of anything so close to Voldemort, so close to his Master.

"He was in there, whispering to himself like mad. He was in a right state pacing and twitching, and I started to feel uneasy about it, but Theo looked so triumphant."

Harry could see Draco worked up into that state, the terror of his own actions drenching his body in self-loathing, his mind drowning in memories and he stepped furiously through the dust, the cold façade he so bravely hid behind gone and melted away under the flooding waves of horror.

He could see Nott too; smug and smiling like a shark. It made Harry's blood boil, the curse fidgeting restlessly as they scene unfolded with Ginny's words.

"Theo said that he told him so, and Malfoy looked more afraid than before, but he told Theo to fuck off. He had his wand, but we did too, and honestly I didn't think he was in any condition to cast a spell. I was afraid it'd be another Unforgivable, he looked so insane.

"And then Theo said, 'this is the fate of traitors, I warned you, didn't I?' So I was confused, and I asked him what he was talking about, but he ignored me and Disarmed Malfoy suddenly. I really shouldn't have trusted him, he is a Slytherin after all, but I just stood there like a dolt as he Disarmed me as well. Then he cursed me, with the Imperius."

Harry hissed in outrage, part of him thankful, however, that it hadn't been the Cruciatus. Ginny was scowling, squinting.

"And then everything was all covered in clouds, muffled and kind of…soft," she smiled sheepishly, but Harry encouraged her on, "But I heard Theo say, 'I'm going to take your place, I'll be rewarded,' some such like that. Malfoy said that he'd never get him. Then there was all this blurred thrashing and I think they started to fight, and Malfoy was screaming, 'Let me go! Let me go!' and finally there was this slamming sound."

She paused and Harry's blood was cold in his veins, relief that Draco's final order hadn't been to severe their bond, to leave Harry hanging by that last fraying thread of hope that maybe it wasn't then end, could do nothing to warm him. Not when the words mistaken for freedom were his pleas for help before—

"He was just…gone,"

Harry nodded faintly. He was gone, somewhere, in a dark room stained and blacked with malice and the entertainment of a madman. He was waiting, wanting; an order poised on the tip of his tongue, but kept silent by something Harry decided was irrational and awful. He felt the pull, he knew the need, and he could almost hear the words, the aching, struggling notes of an instrument just before it breaks.

_Save me._

Harry wasn't going to let his master break.

"Harry?"

Ginny must have seen the volition in his eyes because she looked suddenly frightened, the grip on his hand tightening.

"You know I only want the best for you," she whispered.

"I know that, Gin,"

"So that's why I'll only say for you to be careful and not get yourself killed," she giggled at his incredulous stare, "Harry, anyone with eyes can see that now, unfortunately, its Malfoy that's best for you."

He felt a flush color his face, but felt himself hesitantly nodding as Ginny kept laughing quietly.

"That and you're about three times as stubborn as Ron."

He rolled his eyes and rose, working a kink out of his neck and trying not to think of the challenge that awaited him, a rescue mission that could very well fail. He also tried not to think about last year and tried to fill himself with a plan of some sort. He was going to get Draco back; he would obey his orders to the last.

The assurance he felt was very much like that of last year, when he _knew _that Sirius was waiting for rescue in the Department of Mysteries. But he wasn't thinking about that.

Ginny's gaze, so familiar and so worried, but bravely smiling, followed him to the door of the Hospital wing. Harry felt her confidence in him, her hope, and resolved not to let her down, especially when she called his name again and he turned, making sure to smile at her.

"I'm sorry," she said, solemn, regretful.

"It's alright, Ginny, I understand," he flashed her a grin before slipping out the door.

He understood, because he was still sorry too, much less, but there were the smallest traces of the leaden substance of guilt weighing down his heart. Those traces only grew and spread like an infection as he padded silently down the darkened corridors, thinking about all the people he was abruptly leaving behind to go on a mission that he could only feel the importance of with a connection that was supposedly dissolved. Dumbledore was going to be right furious with him, that was for certain.

He couldn't wait to tell the others, who would surely want to accompany him, or leave a note, because then they'd surely try and do something, and that something likely would get themselves hurt. He remembered a cursed and unconscious Hermione with a lurch of the stomach, and Ron and the brains that left their mark on his arms. There was also the looming knowledge that this was possibly one of the most dangerous things he was ever to do, even more dangerous than breaking into the Department of Mysteries and all its hazards. He could be killed, tortured, any number of horrific things as he marched into Voldemort's den. But he _had _to, for he was sure, even if he wasn't so determined by his own will that he must go and save his master, the curse would eventually drag him, willful or not, to his master's side, where he was needed so desperately.

A horrid sort of excitement buzzed at his fingertips, like accidental magic waiting to be released. That uncontrollable, seemingly limitless power was also at his disposal, if only he could figure out how to use it. Elf magic seemed to eclipse any other, now that Harry thought of it, but it was chained and collared, the property of the master it was bound to.

He hoped Draco would break that restraint, for a moment anyway.

Taking every secret passageway he could think of so as to avoid Filch or any ghosts that might want to stop and chat, he stole into the fifth floor, down the corridor and to the usually empty wall. The Room of Requirement was waiting for him with that worn, old door and the dusty collection of rubbish within. He walked slowly through the alps of lost things, keeping an idle eye out for anything that would be of use to him and his mission. He felt terribly unarmed and rather naked, only his wand and the Map in his pocket.

Something of use was waiting for him, however.

"Harry Potter sir!"

Harry started, his wand in his white-knuckled fist in an instant as he spun about, glancing madly around. He'd just come to the clearing where Ginny had been lying, and there was nothing, just the lack of dust and that old sheet on the floor.

Then there was the softest whisper of fabric as something iridescent, paler than moonlight, slipped away from a tiny form standing in the middle of the dustless floor and gawping at him with large green eyes.

"Dobby?" Harry heaved a sigh of relief, his severely frayed nerves ready to snap without having the life scared from him by nothing more than a house elf. Wearing his Invisibility Cloak.

"Why do you have my Cloak, Dobby?"

Dobby started to fidget, and when he did that it meant some kind of bad news. Harry tapped his wand against his thigh impatiently while the elf watched him with a meek smile.

"Dobby is thinking Harry Potter sir needs it."

Harry blinked, "What for?"

"Winky is be telling Dobby that Harry Potter asked things," Dobby explained, twisting the cloth in his hands, "And that Harry Potter's master is being gone."

Harry swallowed thickly. "Yes,"

"So Harry Potter is to be going to find his Master,"

"Yes," Harry repeated, defiantly. Dobby seemed to be expecting this, however, as he smiled and stood taller.

"Dobby is to be helping."

Harry gaped, the little elf in all his jumper-and-sock-wearing-glory, proud and ready to face a horde of Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself. It made Harry swell a little in pride—for his friend and for house elves.

"No," he deadpanned, watching as Dobby deflated and gave him a disappointed look, "You'll be hurt, or killed."

"But—But Harry Potter sir!"

Harry growled to himself. This was why he wanted to avoid Dobby as much as possible throughout the curse's progress and the mission he was about to take on. Dobby wanted to be helpful in all ways to Harry, which usually meant nearly getting Harry or himself killed in the process. He wasn't about to let anyone at all march off into a battle that really wasn't even his to fight. It was unnecessary, to Dumbledore's eyes, to the world that was counting on him, expecting him not to take risks unless it was for the greater good. But this was for Harry's greater good, for Draco's.

"Harry Potter sir _needs_ Dobby, sir!" Dobby squeaked rather indignantly, "Harry Potter will get hisself lost!"

"I may not know exactly where I'm going, but that doesn't matter," Harry snapped, "I only matters that I go. Now,"

Dobby looked troubled but was standing firm and resolute. Harry really, really didn't want to curse the little elf.

"Dobby knows all about Malfoy Manor," he announced, almost smugly, as he crossed his arms, "Harry Potter does not."

"Malfoy Manor?" Harry asked numbly, he'd nearly forgotten that years ago Dobby belonged to the Malfoys, his family. It was an odd feeling, as if he and Dobby were suddenly long lost step brothers of a marriage unwillingly made. He shook his head to clear it and gave Dobby a level look.

"What does that matter?"

Now Dobby definitely looked smug. Harry wondered if it was because of too much time in the ever haughty Malfoys' company.

"Malfoy Manor is where Master Draco is being right now,"

Fear shot through Harry. If that was where Draco was then that meant—in his own home slithered the most evil of all serpents, hissing his curses and staining the carpets of his ancestral home. Nightmares slinking through corridors, waiting behind shut bedroom doors, like the monsters in his closet that he realized never had existed, born into reality and made much, much more dark than the fears of a child could ever blacken. Trusted faces, leering, jeering and the curses—oh Merlin, the sound, the sight, the pain-

Harry clapped a hand to his scar as it burned, a slow, sharp agony rippling into his mind. He knew what his poor, poor master was feeling, and Harry didn't want him to feel that way for another moment.

"How—how do you know?" Harry demanded.

"Nippy is told Dobby, happened upon each other in Diagon Alley and she was scared, saying about the Manor and her masters and the cabinet—"

"The cabinet?"

"Master Draco's cabinet, he couldn't mend it said Nippy, Mistress Narcissa was fretting over it,"

Harry's eyes glanced to the contemptuous figure of the black cabinet that stood behind Dobby, looking ready to consume the elf. Harry had thought that it was the only think that could possibly be of any importance to this much-paced clearing. The disappearances, the mission Draco had been given by Voldemort, the Room of Requirement, and the slamming noise: it all knitted together to form a clear picture.

A Vanishing Cabinet.

Harry had the most slinking of suspicions about the cabinet—he vaguely recalled that it'd been smashed before to get him out of a jam involving Filch. Ginny in her half-consciousness had looked at it and mumbled, 'Malfoy's'. It was his; Draco had to be mending it now, for his mission, as its twin sat in Malfoy Manor. Cold fear ran through Harry as he realized that it had to have been working to an extent to whisk away two boys. Harry could just imagine what horrors could be unleashed upon the school in the form of cloaked figures in masks sending green everywhere.

That couldn't be allowed to happen.

He comforted himself with the thought that Dumbledore would have to concede that this was a task worthy of the Chosen One, saving the school and his master in the process.

"Dobby," the elf had been watching him with concern, but stood at attention now, "Do you know where in Malfoy Manor they keep a cabinet like this one?"

Harry pointed at the Vanishing Cabinet and Dobby examined it with interest, but shook his head. Harry shook his own as he stepped toward the cabinet, pressing a reluctant hand to the door and feeling its incredibly frigid, smooth surface, like touching ice. He opened it, finding himself starting into an unremarkable darkness, just a shadow. But that shadow was waiting to swallow him and thrust him into the belly of a beast he wasn't prepared to face. Harry was, however, prepared to do anything to get Draco back.

He climbed into the cabinet, Dobby scrambling after him. Harry kept the door open, just a sliver, his breath quickening and filling the cramped space. He felt like he was going to use the Floo for the first time, but travel in ice and darkness rather than fire and light. It was quite frightening a prospect, the ideas conjured by his overactive imagination—splinching, getting lost in some limbo of a place, awakening after a fortnight to find himself in a toilet, and, of course, getting to his intended destination and failing. Which meant death.

"Harry Potter sir?" Dobby voice somehow echoed in the cabinet.

"We're going to Malfoy Manor," Harry said firmly, part of him trying to plead with the cabinet.

"Yes sir," Dobby was scared, but so was Harry, so it was alright.

Slowly, Harry pulled back his hand from where it held open the door, listening to the deafeningly loud creak as the Vanishing Cabinet closed and left them in an all-consuming darkness.

~o0o~


	15. The Servant's Last Bow

The Servant's Last Bow

It was a dry-cold as the cabinet seemed to indeed devour him, the blackness pressing him into more and more blackness and he felt instantly lost. Harry wasn't sure where Dobby was, come to think of it, he wasn't sure if Vanishing Cabinet travel was meant for two. He was sure Hermione would have known, but she didn't know anything of what Harry was doing.

Then it was over, he felt himself once again surrounded by smooth wood, his gasps echoing as he leaned against the back of the cabinet and took stock of his limbs, which thankfully were all intact and in their rightful places. Dobby wasn't with him, wherever he was, either. Harry didn't even know if he was in the right place. Where was the Vanishing Cabinet's twin in Malfoy Manor? Did they know he was here? Was someone waiting just outside, wand poised and his death on their lips?

Was Voldemort seated on some throne just beyond the doors of the black cabinet that may soon be Harry's coffin?

There was a sudden _crack!_ and Harry thought the whole of the cabinet may be splintering apart under a Death Eater attack, anxious for his death. But then there was a small hand on his and he bit down on a yelp when he realized it was Dobby who had Apparated into the cabinet.

"Dobby, where were you?" he asked, not daring to breathe past a whisper.

"Dobby arrived before Harry Potter sir," Dobby whispered, "Dobby looked outside and Dobby thinks we is safe here, no one around."

With much trepidation, Harry opened the door to the cabinet, his wand at the ready as he stepped into a large, rather empty room. There was a large, curtained window on one side of the room that slipped in a bleak moonlight between the sheer folds of fabric. Everything was washed white, much like the paleness of the Malfoys themselves, aside from the dark hardwood floors that Harry was careful not to make squeak.

There were double doors off to the side, and Harry moved slowly toward them, casting a glance back at the foreboding figure of the Vanishing Cabinet that was the mirror image of its twin in the Room of Requirement, just as dusty, and, strangely, skirted with junk in the form of rotted apples and their cores, little bones that Harry hoped were chicken, and bits of moldering food.

It unsettled him for some reason, and there was a stink in the air he didn't want to put a name to, but he ignored that and turned to Dobby, who was trembling something awful.

"Where are we exactly then?"

"We is in the East Wing, near Master Lucius' study," His squeak of a voice stumbled over the name of his former, cruel master. Poor elf must have been terrified to be in this place again.

"Where would Draco be?" Harry's voice too, stumbled over his master's, but with the deepest of care farther than a fear.

"Dobby thinks—that is, Dobby feels, sir," Dobby gave him a small smile, "that they all is be being in the drawing room on the first floor."

"House elves can sense where the masters of a house are so as to better predict their needs and come to their aid," Harry absently quoted Hermione, who had read quite a few house elf facts aloud on those long afternoons in the library. Harry felt it, now that he was in the home of his masters, they weren't too far off, a floor away, a few winding corridors, close enough that Harry could feel a desperate need grinding through him, pricking at his scar: pain—fear—resentment—cold—and there—that little flicker—hope. It was almost overwhelming and Harry had to again spare a moment of awe for house elves.

"Do you know how many people are in the house, Dobby?" Harry asked, for surely it was not just the Malfoys in Voldemort's new headquarters.

"More than masters, but Dobby unsure, but there be no one in corridor here," he assured Harry.

Harry in turn opened one of the doors slowly, willing the hinges to remain silent. A dark expanse of corridor lay outside, dotted with pedestals and busts and pictures that were empty of occupants, the busts all frozen in a marble expression of a well-contained anxiety. Overall, it was not a good feeling Harry felt as he and Dobby padded down it, their footsteps thankfully muffled by the plush carpet. Harry had hidden under the Invisibility Cloak and Dobby trotted at his heels, just concealed by the flowing fabric.

There was absolute silence as they made their way down the hallway and toward the stairs to the first floor. It was chilly in the house, and the quiet of it was maddening, there was no night noises of working house elves or gliding owls or even just the hushed groan of the ancient house settling further onto it foundation. It was just dark and soundless. Like death.

The silence was shattered by a clunk of a step, and then another, Dobby shot out from between Harry's feet in his surprise and Harry could do nothing to try to drag him back under as a figure was illuminated by a window on the far end of the corridor that cast its milky light down upon the impenetrable shadow coming upstairs. It was huge, but swift as it strode toward them, a tall man in a dragging, tattered robe that stunk of sweat and blood and Merlin knows what else. There was a primal sort of fear stirring in Harry's stomach as his body recognized the presence of a predator with amber eyes and pointed teeth curved into a wicked smile.

Fenrir Greyback had spotted Dobby, but not Harry and was grinning in that awful, wolfish way. Harry felt every muscle in his body tensed to run, to fight, to do s_omething_, but he kept still and made himself do nothing as he stood, invisible and watching, waiting for everything to go to ruin.

"Oi, elf," Greyback growled and Dobby flinched himself into a bow that seemed rather like an attempt to hide himself. "Go and make us something nice and raw, yeah? I'm sick of waiting around for Nott's little lamb to draw in the lion,"

He rumbled a laugh and passed Dobby without a second glance, unblinkingly assuming that Dobby was just another house elf of the Manor and not at all out of place. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Greyback passed him too; going toward the room Harry and Dobby had just emerged from. Harry thought that he should lock Greyback in the room after he shut himself inside, one less beast to worry about as they went downstairs and into the snake pit.

When he turned to shadow Greyback, however, he saw that the werewolf had paused in his steps, and seemed to be sniffing the air—oh Merlin.

"Something smells like a healing…and a little girl's perfume…and, oh could it be?"

He turned and the moonlight glinted off his yellowed teeth with a malicious, hungry gleam as bright as that which glimmered in his hunter's eyes. He knew Harry was there, saturated in the scents of the sterile Hospital wing and Ginny's flowery perfume, and with no doubt, whatever smell one associated with none other than the Boy Who Lived himself. What scent was that, he wondered, perhaps the aroma of stupidity and recklessness?

Greyback's eyes were darting about the corridor, his slightly pointed ears twitching this way and that, listening for Harry's every breath, his nose scrunched and seeking out his scent. Harry seemed very much trapped, but then there was a distraction that gave him what could very well be the few moments that saved his life.

"Oi elf!" Greyback snarled at Dobby, "Get out of here, go and get Rodolphus and tell him that the boy's come for his bitch."

And Dobby, far more brave than many people Harry knew, faced Greyback's glare with a scowl as he stood tall and proudly proclaimed, "Dobby is a free elf!"

Greyback frankly looked gobsmacked by the elf's words, likely just as much because he wasn't a frightened, servile mess that had yet to make him food or fetch a Death Eater from downstairs. Even for Greyback, a werewolf, realizing that a 'lower' creature than himself having a free will was rather unbelievable.

So Harry had the pleasure of aiming a Stunner right into the stupid expression on the beast's face, smiling in satisfaction as he went down with a quiet thud that no one downstairs would hear. Dobby looked just as pleased as he shuffled up and wordlessly levitated the fallen werewolf as they made their way back toward the room with the Vanishing Cabinet to lock the beast away. Harry was beginning to think that maybe things would go better than the bloodbath he'd been expecting, the hellhole crawling with Death Eaters and snakes. He had the distinct feeling that Voldemort wasn't even there, his scar unhurt, so the threat of downstairs that faced them was much less than he'd originally thought.

That's when something he should have expected happened. He instantly regretted not reading his D.A.D.A. text more thoroughly, after all, then he would have known that it takes more than one spell to properly down a werewolf, especially so close to the full moon.

Greyback sprang back to life with a vicious howl as he thrashed, dirty, claw-like fingernails catching on Dobby's fuzzy jumper and flinging him across the corridor crash into a bust that was watching with interest. Harry was dealt a booted kick to the gut and he toppled over, rolling away from Greyback, who was still hovering and still swiping and kicking like mad. He blindly cast another _Stupefy _ as the werewolf was sprang on him, taking advantage of the levitation and flying roughly into him, teeth and claws rather than charms and curses. Harry desperately pushed away at the werewolf's face, feeling as his hands struggled to claw their way through Harry's clothes to tear at flesh and spill blood.

Harry numbly counted as he fired off spell after spell into the werewolf, his voice hoarse as he shouted the incantations, probably summoning whoever waited downstairs. He felt that he was losing strength. The very stench of Greyback made him dizzy, it was acid and rank and reeked of sin and other poisons. However, he felt that the werewolf was weakening too; his body heavier as he struggled to hold it up as they rolled on the carpet and smashed into walls and more busts, his claws were slowing and breathing labored. Harry's wand was suddenly knocked aside at an odd angle that pointed away from Greyback and he froze in his panic. Then that breath—the worst smelling of the whole of him—was on his neck, hot and lusting for pain and his end, smelling of rot and blood and—of mint.

Something snapped within Harry—a screaming renting him like claws made filthy with a terrible outrage and spilt a fiery, pure _possession_ into his veins. His master, his Draco, how dare this mutt get close enough to steal that heavenly scent from the palest, most stained of angels?

The force of the magic blackened his vision for a moment and Harry wasn't all that sure as to what had happened exactly, but he was lying on the carpet and Greyback was back in the shadows of the far corridor, just an unmoving mound that appeared to be partially melded into the floor itself. Harry shuddered as he took in the sight and realized that it was his own magic that had done that Dark-looking deed.

He made himself think that it was all for the best, that it was all for his master. He full well knew that he'd do far more than murder for Draco.

His worry strung higher than ever, fit to snap, he crawled over to Dobby's prone form against the wall.

"Dobby?" he shook the elf gingerly, "Dobby?"

Dobby's tennis ball eyes swam as he opened them and squinted at Harry. He hoisted himself to his feet suddenly and shook his head, looking a little worse for the wear, but ready to fight by Harry's side.

"Dobby is just fine, Harry Potter sir," Dobby whispered cheerily at Harry's skeptical look, "Dobby has had much worse."

Unfortunately, Harry didn't doubt that. He once again slipped the Cloak over them and left the form of Greyback behind them as they at last reached the staircase and crept down it.

The hall they turned onto was just as long as the last and filled with opened doors, within any one of which Draco might be. His presence was intensely close, pulling at Harry with a power surpassing that of an Unforgivable, but all light rather than so dark a curse.

Dobby tugged at his trouser leg and Harry let the elf lead, his heart thudding so audibly in his chest that he was sure all of Wiltshire could hear, not to mention the Death Eaters that lurked somewhere nearby. He was still expecting another attack after the commotion upstairs.

They came upon a door half opened, and inside was something from a memory, a nightmare that wasn't Harry's; a dimly lit room and a darkened carpet, black cloaked figures congregating around a single figure that was easily the brightest thing in the room in its paleness. Harry knew that alabaster shade well, how it had been turned a sickly pallid hue under stress and terror, how it smelled of mint and tasted like the sweetest of nectars.

Draco was slumped on the floor before the glowing embers of the fireplace that cast his shadow long across the room. There were four other people in the room, but Harry could hardly be bothered to pay them any mind, not when Draco was right there, needing him, wanting him, his eyes dull and depraved of the light Harry had come to love.

Dobby tugged on him again and Harry forced himself to take note of the other people in the room. He knew one of them was Rodolphus Lestrange, and Harry felt, he knew, that the pair beside the fireplace, just in the shadow, was Lucius and Narcissa. Harry knew Narcissa at the least wouldn't fight him much, perhaps so as not to look the traitor, but Harry understood the careful line they were walking, the one Draco had stumbled and fallen over.

Dobby was tugging on him again and he nodded impatiently, trying to formulate some sort of plan of attack, but all time to think was stolen from him as he was suddenly shoved into the room, falling over Dobby and onto his face as the Cloak became bunched up and fell away. There was a frozen moment as everyone in the room gaped at Harry Potter.

Then there was a flurry of motion as wands were drawn and aimed at him. Harry's own darted from target to target, feeling overwhelmed and cornered. Dobby wasn't even at his side anymore and Harry more than understood the elf's need to flee.

"I told you!" a crazed voice he recognized shrieked, "I knew he'd come! He had to!"

Theodore Nott was behind him, the one who had shoved him into the room and the one who had kidnapped Draco and brought him to this nightmare. Harry felt more rage toward him than to anyone else in the room, and he turned in the slightest to catch of glimpse of his frighteningly wide smirk.

He couldn't get to Nott just yet however, not with three adults ready to curse him all at once. Narcissa as far as he could tell had disappeared entirely; he couldn't see her in the shadows or feel her presence. Harry was still dreadfully outnumbered, the confidence he'd gained within the presence of his master was all but gone along with the incredible power he'd only just wielded against Greyback. It was all just accidental magic it seemed, coming and going and never there when it was most needed.

All of a sudden, there was one less person's spell to dodge, leaving the unnamed Death Eater, Nott and Lucius looking about in bewilderment. The bearded Death Eater seemed to believe Harry had somehow vanished Lestrange without so much as a whisper of a spell and gave a snarl of anger as he fired off a spell. Harry deftly rolled out of the way, away from Nott and into the darker portion of the room as the four converged on him, casting curses furiously.

The glow of spells lit up the darkness in a sinister rainbow, but there had yet to be any green illuminating the drawing room. They wanted him alive, having been ready all along to trap him because they knew he would never be able to resist the bait they kept immobile before the fireplace. Harry couldn't spare a glance at Draco as he tried to Disarm them between _Protegos._ He just needed a moment, a falter in the gunfire of curses, and then he might be able to—

Just as he aimed a spell at Nott, the other Death Eater _popped _out of existence.

Harry then realized where Dobby had gone and had a brilliant idea; if it'd work, and if he'd have the chance. At the moment, it was unlikely, but he saw a glimmer of hope in the form of the uncertainty in the eldest Malfoy's eyes.

Nott, however, was relentless, a mad light to his eyes as he flicked the hair from his face and mercilessly slashed Dark curse after Dark curse at Harry. He had this great, triumphant grin on his face that was more than disturbing as he laughed breathlessly.

"I knew it," he kept repeating, "I knew it,"

"Just what did you know then?" Harry snapped, barely taking note of the fact that Lucius had paused in his attack.

Nott looked positively smug in his predatory, insane way, like a dog with rabies.

"Draco was supposed to be doing his job and it was obvious he wasn't," Nott smirked, "If that wasn't offense enough, he went off and started chasing after you, or rather, you were chasing him."

Harry snarled and lashed out with a curse that Nott sidestepped with a guffaw, seeming to enjoy himself immensely as he continued.

"Was it just a little crush? He'd always had the most awful tastes, but this was different. This was involuntary. Like a spell or a curse."

Ginny's words were oddly echoed and Harry wished desperately he could look at Draco, but he kept his eyes on Nott and didn't dare take them off him. Whatever the Slytherin saw there betrayed him.

"It's a curse isn't it?" Nott was giddy, "Like—"

A look of realization spread over Nott's face and he leapt over to where Draco was, jerking him to his feet and jabbing his wand to his neck. Something broke within the room and the atmosphere felt heavy, crackling with something far more powerful than electricity, like a brewing storm as Harry glared and silently dared Nott to do something to his master just so that he could have the excuse to kill him.

"Go on, Draco," Nott hissed, a perverse glee widening his smile as he watched as Draco and Harry locked eyes, grey and green and unwavering, "Tell Potter to behave like a proper _elf_."

There was something pulling within him, Harry could feel the order on Draco's tongue, and was prepared to leap through the bindings of the curse and fight and struggle and kill himself before he gave in and passively sat by.

"Don't do anything stupid, Potter,"

There was a bitter sort of amusement in Draco's eyes as Harry blinked into them and felt no noose around his neck, no bindings, only a wide, wonderfully free loophole for Harry to leap through. He could have smiled if he wasn't about to do something many people would consider very stupid, but he knew was actually quite recklessly clever and undoubtedly unexpected.

He sprung forward and tackled Nott, pushing Draco away as they fell and suddenly vanished with a resonant _crack!_

Harry had tore through barriers and enchantments in only a way an elf could, willing himself by pure, servile magic to take this wretched thing as far from his master as possible—just as he wanted. Harry rather like Draco's imagination as snowflakes blew into his eyes and a chilly wind wrapped around him and his captive as they scrambled away from each other—and for footing because the ground they stood on was at a steep slant.

"What the hell?" Nott exclaimed, all the victory and the madness gone from his face as he gaped at the glorious, blindingly white-dusted view around them. The view of the Hogwarts grounds from the top of the Astronomy Tower was astounding in winter and Harry smirked as he took it in, relief flooding his body as ice cold air filled his lungs and kicked a new strength into him.

Dobby had been imaginative to think of simply _popping_ away the enemy, wherever they had gone, and trust only Draco to be vividly envisioning pitching Nott of the Astronomy Tower enough to translate the image through the curse.

"Someone will find you, eventually," Harry informed a shivering Nott, who was casting about for his wand, which was buried somewhere in the snow. Harry felt no guilt as he channeled the magic that didn't seem really his through the trilling of the curse, Nott would be struck there, and frozen or not, he could do no more damage to his master.

With another _crack! _he was back in that dimly lit drawing room, and he blinked as he tried to rid himself of bright blotches over his vision from gazing out into the very white, very bright snow.

Draco was there, sprawled on the ground and still under the effect of whatever spell that inhibited his movement, white as the snow Harry felt melting in his hair. He just wanted to pick him up and _pop!_ them away from there, to the library maybe, to their warm, snug corner and curl together into Draco's plush arm chair and sleep off the nightmare. It was what he wanted, and what he knew, by the almost drawling twang of the curse that it was what Draco wanted too.

But Draco's eyes widened suddenly, fear flashing in their stormy depths like lightening as Harry turned, too late, to face a wand to his chest and a shaken Lucius Malfoy.

"I must do what's best for my family," he said slowly, all the aristocratic assurance and pride gone from him as his wand arm shook and his eyes darted to his son, "I have to."

He seemed to be trying to convince both Harry and himself. Harry actually felt as if he liked the man a little more if just because of his loyalty to his family.

"I want what is best for Draco," Harry cautiously gave the smallest of bows to the head of the family he served, the family the most entwined part of him wanted the best for.

Lucius gave a ghost of his own curt smirk, and Draco suddenly started yelling.

"Don't! Father, don't you dare!"

Harry turned to look at Draco, at his frightened, wide eyes, those beautiful December sky, grey, grey eyes framed by the lightest of eyelashes the hue of newly fallen snow before everything went luridly, dreadfully green.

~o0o~

Harry understood why Lucius did it. It was what was best for the Malfoys. Harry died in Nott's trap and the Vanishing Cabinet was a success and all was forgiven, they were in power and safety once more. It was what was expected of them.

What Harry didn't understand was why death was rather like life with one's eyes closed. It wasn't any darker than usual, maybe a bit more uncomfortable than a sleep, but just as groggy and head-muddling. He would have liked to see his parents, and Sirius and Cedric and everyone he'd ever lost. He'd found some people he'd really miss, but at the moment the loss couldn't touch him because there was a song flowing through him, the softest of melodies that twisted and twined through his heartstrings, the lyrics slowly reaching him, a broken, begging, almost senseless litany of, "How dare you? How dare you?"

Those words meant something, Harry felt, didn't they? He was starting to feel a lot of things again, like warmth and a wetness, a pressure and a cold floor.

"Damn it, I never wanted you to be like this," someone was crying, someone with the most beautiful of voices, "I never expected this of you, though the rest of the world did, didn't they?"

Harry willed the shell he was in, the body that was gradually gaining feeling to move, and he was suddenly half-sitting up in a pair of slim arms. There was a song he had to sing along to it seemed, deep within and weaved by this choked, angel voice that was so wonderfully near him.

"What do you want me to be, Master?" Were those his words, so quiet and rough?

There was a sob that was almost a laugh, and the arms held him closer and Harry could hear a drum, a heartbeat that joined in the orchestra threading its way into his hazed and foggy soul.

"I want you to be Harry Potter," said the angel voice, the conductor of this music, the creator, "I want you to be the stupid, brash, stubborn and untamable Harry Potter that I know."

The song, that lovely piece that always played somewhere deep within him on taut strings and jingling chains about hatred and unlikely love, of curses and blessings and dreams and nightmares, of grey skies and verdant fields, stopped in the most deafening acquiescence.

Harry knew he was fainting, and that was alright, because he was in Draco's arms.

~o0o~

There was no aroma of mint here, nor was there any music. Just a murmur past the darkness of his shut eyes that he knew quite well, too well; worried voices echoing in the spacious Hospital wing. He knew the feel of the crisp sheets, the sterile smell, and the very placement of the air itself. He knew where most of the potions were stored and much of what they did. Sometimes he wished he didn't know as much as he did, but at that moment his memory was eluding him.

"I thought you might sleep forever."

Harry's eyes snapped open and flickered to the source of the drawling voice. Draco was at his bedside, lounging back in an armchair identical to that which was tucked away in the library. He looked dazzlingly stark in the white hospital robes along with his ivory skin and near-white hair. Harry had to blink at him for a few moments, something randomly flashing through his mind about angels. That was stupid, of course, Draco Malfoy was no angel.

"I'm awake," Harry croaked, his throat dry. Draco instantly supplied him with a glass of water and Harry could only watch him as he drank.

"So you are." Draco said, a mysterious look of awe on his pale face.

"What? What's happened?" Harry demanded, a slow horror creeping up on his as Draco just looked at him, his eyes unfathomable and frighteningly bright.

"Harry?"

Harry turned to see Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Snape and Dumbledore staring at him as if they didn't know him, as if he were some strange boy that had popped existence while their backs were turned.

Why was he in the Hospital wing in the first place? Something about a cabinet, Dobby, a dark corridor, the moon nearly full, and hot rank breath at his throat ready to sink poisonous teeth into his flesh…

He was a werewolf.

His hand flew to his neck, but he felt nothing there but smooth skin and sweat. He turned to Draco in puzzlement.

"But—Greyback—"

Draco seemed to break from the spell that captivated him to watch Harry like he was something rare and miraculous. He smirked at Harry's panicked hand and shook his head.

"I'm not sure what you did to that beast, but he did nothing to you," a satisfied sneer curled his smirk away, "He won't be doing anything to anybody now."

Greyback had been nothing more than a shape in the floor, Harry now recalled. He started to remember everything, what had happened after that burst of magic, what had happened in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. What Lucius Malfoy had done.

Now he understood why everyone was gawking as if he was something rare and miraculous, it was because he was indeed miraculous at the very least. He defied death for the second time.

Harry was at a loss for words, slack jawed as he stared at Draco and wondered _how _and _why_. Draco smiled slightly, seeming to read his mind.

"For once you weren't much of a Gryffindor," he said, too quietly for anyone but himself and Harry to hear, "You didn't dare."

He hadn't. He hadn't dared die when he'd been told, given a direct order, not to.

"The curse then, is it…?"

Harry didn't need Draco to tell him that it was broken; all the musical, intrusive threads that had wound their way within him seemingly irrevocably were gone and slipped away, its final act saving his life. He was just Harry now, stupid, brash, untamable Harry. There were no chains binding him to the boy that sat beside him, that watched the truth dawning in his eyes. There was nothing at all that kept him by the Slytherin's side, no curse or any rational thought tethered him there.

Except for that drunken, irrational spell of a feeling, heated and deep and boundless; a love that lilted across the silence between them, on his heartstrings, as strong and sure as a phoenix song.

"It's broken," Dumbledore's voice dragged him away from the enveloping December skies that were Draco's eyes, "This time."

Harry felt guilt well up in him, but the twinkle was back in Dumbledore's eyes and it was only Hermione who was not smiling (and Snape of course). She looked tore between tears and a disapproving glare. Harry smiled sheepishly and she turned away, burying what was no doubt a relieved, proud smile in Ron's shoulder.

"So I lived again?" Harry asked simply and both Draco and Snape rolled their eyes.

"Yes, indeed. The Boy Who Lived Again." Dumbledore chuckled and Harry felt like rolling his own eyes. He certainly didn't need any more titles. He was just Harry.

He got back to the question that niggled at him, casting a wary look toward Draco.

"Is Lucius-?"

Dumbledore raised a hand to silence him and gave him a fond smile that eased the chewing concern of his stomach.

"Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy have been escorted to an Order-sponsored safe house and are being looked after by a certain house elf that so happens to have just been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix."

Harry beamed and seized Draco's hand in his own, relief and happiness welling inside him and spilling over. He watched as it spread to Draco, who quite reluctantly smiled back and mumbled something under his breath about house elves. Harry took no offense and just kept smiling like a loon and feeling incredibly proud for Dobby and all the elf has done for him, and for Draco.

As soon as Dumbledore and Snape swept out, Harry's friend's converged on him, asking questions and scolding him, congratulating him and, much to the Slytherin's veiled embarrassment, welcoming Draco back. He only granted Hermione a smirk of a smile and she grinned in return.

"So what's gone on while I was supposed to be dead?" Harry asked. Draco's hand tightened around his just the smallest bit and Harry pulled him the slightest bit closer. This was not lost on Ginny, and Harry could see that distant glimmer of a melancholy yearning in her eyes, but it was just that: distant and eclipsed with a wide smile.

"Nott was rescued from the Astronomy Tower," she said, "That was rather brilliant, a prank worthy of the twins."

"It wasn't a prank, and it's mostly thanks to Draco's…vivid imagination." Draco cocked a brow unabashedly and Harry knew there were far worse things he'd fantasized about. He inexplicably felt himself blushing and blustered on, "Anyway, what's going to happen to him now?"

"He's not Marked, but it's fairly obvious what he was trying to do." Hermione supplied, having calmed down into a half-hearted sulkiness, "He's awaiting trial. But the Vanishing Cabinet was destroyed."

"But what about the one in Malfoy Manor?"

"Well I suppose it's rather useless now, but no one is going to go there for a while anyway, not until the Ministry has had a look around at least." Ron said, and Harry was proud to note that he didn't look the slightest bit uncomfortable around Draco, "But it's not as if You-Know-Who is about to use it as a hideout again. I suppose that he was just as cross as Trelawney to learn that you didn't die."

Harry chuckled weakly, and then turned to Draco, whose eyes were downcast. When he felt Harry's stare however, he straightened, a fierce disdain on his face even as he gripped Harry's hand.

"It's not as if I ever want to go back there, so don't stare at me all sorrowfully as if I'm some stray with no place to go." He glared at them all haughtily, as if daring them to show an ounce of pity for him, "I'll be spending the summer in the safe house with my parents."

Harry just smiled at the brave, brave boy that made 'safe house' sound like 'exclusive resort' and held the pale, spindly hand closer to his chest.

"And I'll be going there as well," Harry said.

"Well, naturally, after all, Harry,"

After all they'd been through together, the need they had for the other's presence, the desperate desire for a smile, a smirk, or just a passing stare. After all, they would wither over the sweltering summer without the spring rain of verdant green, or the cooling winter wind of grey. After all, they couldn't forget, couldn't control that wondrous curse of a love that bound them as a passionate, volatile, deeply devoted and inexplicable couple.

Of course, neither said this, rather merely allowing it to pass between them in nothing more than an acquiescence.

No one expected any less of them.

~o0o~

_Finite Incantatem_

~o0o~


End file.
